posted by Brit
For reasons unknown - perhaps because of the sheer weight of lunacy, the Transhumanism 2 post has malfunctioned. Perhaps it will come back, I don't know, but the debate was still raging.
Please feel free to continue it here, though I can't see why there's still any argument over whether transhumanism is a utopian project.
Surely Peter Burnet ended that one by asking the key question: if there's no project, why aren't they just medical researchers?
(cartoon from http://xkcd.com/)
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I suppose the other question I have is in reply to Phillipe's dream of convincing billions of people the world over to see things his way. Why? Does he think there is a large constituency for shortened lifespans out there?
ReplyDeleteTranshumanism....You mean I can be part of the Xmen?
ReplyDeletewhat larks! good cartoon, nice touch.
ReplyDeleteHave you been DoS-ed or what?
ReplyDeleteThe cartoon came from http://xkcd.com/ by the way, a sometimes brilliant web-comic. He doesn't mind being copied, as long as you mention the source.
Good point, Bob, I'll put that right.
ReplyDeleteThe Transhumanism 2 post is still available in the Google cache, I don't know for how long:
ReplyDeletehttp://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:RTZpglOcK_EJ:www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/2008/10/transhumanism-2.php+transhumanism+2&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1
I thought we had stopped the debate on Peter's request in order not to take too much of this blog bandwidth. But I take this Transhumanism 3 post as an invitation to continue the debate.
So in reply to Peter's question "I suppose the other question I have is in reply to Phillipe's dream of convincing billions of people the world over to see things his way. Why? Does he think there is a large constituency for shortened lifespans out there?":
Well, I think there is, and some of you guys seem part of it. Of course not in the sense of willing to shorten current life spans, or in the sense of not supporting moderate increases of healthy lifespan. But it seems to me that some of you people would be against _radically_ increased lifespans, for some kind of "ethical" reasons.
Now, if there is no chance of radically increasing our lifespan, this debate makes about as much sense as discussing how many angels can dance on a pin. But many experts and researchers, some of whom very well known and respected, think plausible mid-term advances in medical technology will permit radically extending lifespans, to several centuries and more.
To me, aging and death are engineering problems for which we may find appropriate engineering solution soon (eg a few decades), later (eg a couple of centuries), or never. On the basis of my understanding of the technical disciplines involved, I think this will happen between soon and later, say in the second half of the century. You may, of course, agree or disagree on the basis of your own understanding of the technical disciplines involved.
But this is not the point I want to make. My point is: assuming that someday technology will permit us healthy indefinite lifespans, it will be something GOOD. First question: do you agree? Second question: if you don't agree, why? Not agreeing to "life is good and death is no good" is equivalent, in my opinion, to advocating shortened lifespans.
Strange, all of that cut and thrust, claim and counterclaim over this transmalarky, nobody mentioned bionic.
ReplyDeleteEnough already, as Rich Hall said, we've got a shit sandwich, with the choice of white or brown bread.
@ malty: in that missing thread, I mentioned bionics, linking here: Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman
ReplyDelete~~
@ (some) transhumanists:
There was talk in that thread about uploading and downloading. Brit's points had never been satisfactorily answered. Ethical questions arise here.
There is no surety and no way of calculating probabilities of failure, that a person's essential being or consciousness would "follow" such technological applications. It's the zombie problem. It's not enough to have machines that act and look like malty, giulio, peter burnet, ian russell, bob and Brit, there is the problem that we cannot be sure there is the subjective presence of consciousness and self carried through the process as well into the new vessels.
But what joy it would be for others to be around such "copies". We might all be able to answer what would Bryan have been like if he had been able to live 50,000 years, with increased neural capacities, but we could never be sure we would still have the real Bryan.
Until this zombie question is answered, we would never want to upload someone and download them somewhere else, doing so under anyone's assumption that identifying us as our memories and cognitive processing is sufficient for a self, and destroying a still viable body in the process. You would never run over a pile of leaves unless you were sure there was no child hiding inside. You would never raise a building with dynamite, unless you were sure there was no one inside. Similarly, we should not be shutting down a human body thinking we've safely uploaded the person.
Yours,
Rus
giulio, the reason why people won't give you the clear-cut answer you crave is because the question has no meaning without some coherent shared notion of what kind of a life you are talking about. Your notion of quality of life seems to be very superficial and relates entirely to bare physical health and prowess. The only sense I can make out of it is that you are taking the lives we now lead and extending each stage by a constant factor, say five. Does this mean eighty years of childhood or do we want to get to the sexy parts as fast as we can? A hundred years of fading seniority or are we all going to be frisky twenty somethings and then suddenly die in perfect health? We all know the return on self-focused pleasures and indulgences declines over time, and not just because bones start to creak, but your mumbo-jumbo about genetic fixes makes it sound like you think you can make us experience the hundredth trip to Vegas like the first.
ReplyDeleteSomething you might ponder is that, although we like to think modern medicine has radically extended lifespans, that is mainly because of huge decreases in child and young adult mortality. Our notion of the length of a full and complete life hasn't changed by much more than a few years since biblical times. We may be unspeakably sad when an eighty year old dies, but we hardly see it as akin to the tragedy of a life snuffed out at ten. Our entire material, psychological and spiritual essences are defined by the cycles within this fairly constant range, which is why folks see your dream as beyond the human and therefore inaccessible in meaning.
As much as you talk about conquering death, I get the sense this is really about preserving eternal youth and carefree irresponsibility--the Peter Pan syndrome. If that is the case, then I find it much easier to answer your question. The idea sucks.
I keep thinking of a Paul Simon song with the line, "Me and Julio down by the schoolyard."
ReplyDeleteMe and Giulio down by the graveyard;
I am dead and he's getting my spare parts....
Okay, I'm not a poet like Brit!
How about . . .
ReplyDelete~~~~~
by Sylvia Plath
Mirror
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
~~~~~
More from the poetry world. Here's a paragraph from an article by David Kirby on Brenda Shaughnessy's book "Human Dark With Sugar" in the NYT:
ReplyDeleteOn Shaughnessy goes, leaping from one bodily dilemma to another. But once you’ve decided that “Parthenogenesis” is just a darkly humorous catalog of the many ways in which we fool ourselves, she ups the stakes in the last four lines, where she says, in effect, that what we’d all really like to do is destroy ourselves and put a new person in our place who happens to be just like us. This idea of the divided self is not a new one, but Shaughnessy shows there’s life in the old story yet.
Yours,
Rus
Exciting noos on the transmalarky front, the froggies have invented a placky ticker, taking orders now for delivery in four years, anyone pegging out before then can be stored in the freezer. Well, what's wrong with that then?
ReplyDeletePeter wrote: or are we all going to be frisky twenty somethings and then suddenly die in perfect health?
ReplyDeleteYou mean like this?
The Deacon’s Masterpiece
or, the Wonderful "One-hoss Shay":
A Logical Story
by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay,
I’ll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, —
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive, —
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock’s army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.
Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot, —
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will, —
Above or below, or within or without, —
And that’s the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but doesn’t wear out.
But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an “I dew vum,” or an “I tell yeou”)
He would build one shay to beat the taown
’N’ the keounty ’n’ all the kentry raoun’;
It should be so built that it couldn’ break daown:
“Fur,” said the Deacon, “’tis mighty plain
Thut the weakes’ place mus’ stan’ the strain;
’N’ the way t’ fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T’ make that place uz strong uz the rest.”
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn’t be split nor bent nor broke, —
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the “Settler’s ellum,” —
Last of its timber, — they couldn’t sell ’em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he “put her through.”
“There!” said the Deacon, “naow she’ll dew!”
Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren — where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; — it came and found
The Deacon’s masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten; —
“Hahnsum kerridge” they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; —
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.
Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundreth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there’s nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it. — You’re welcome. — No extra charge.)
FIRST OF NOVEMBER, — the Earthquake-day, —
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn’t be, — for the Deacon’s art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn’t a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!
First of November, ’Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
“Huddup!” said the parson. — Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday’s text, —
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the — Moses — was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet’n’-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill, —
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet’n-house clock, —
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you’re not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once, —
All at once, and nothing first, —
Just as bubbles do when they burst.
End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That’s all I say.
"Surely Peter Burnet ended that one by asking the key question: if there's no project, why aren't they just medical researchers?"
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent point. I do not consider curing aging to be any more "transhumanism" than say curing cancer or diabetes. In fact, I think by not calling curing aging transhumanism, one is able to mainstream radical life extension as simply a routine advance in biomedicine, which is how I think of it. I see no reason to treat the aging process any differently than any other degenerative disease. Its effect is the same.
"As much as you talk about conquering death, I get the sense this is really about preserving eternal youth and carefree irresponsibility--the Peter Pan syndrome."
This is very uncharitable and wrong to boot. The desire to cure aging is motivated by the desire for openness. To live a life free of a fixed horizon. To suggest that this is simply the Peter pan syndrome is offensive to those of us who do take personal responsibility for our lives.
There is one and only one legitimate definition of "grown up" and that is accepting responsibility of one's own actions. Every transhumanist I know personally takes responsibility for his or her own actions very seriously. To suggest that we are Peter Pans is highly offensive.
When I moved to SoCal at age 22, I discovered that I like openess. Later, I have lived in several Asian countries and have been in several business start-ups. I currently am the Asian sales manager for the company I work for. The basic idea of life extension is to be able to pursue whatever dreams you may have free of any time constraints. Its about going to Taiwan to start a software company, then going to Singapore to start a biotech company. Its about hanging out on the beaches of Thailand and Philippines for months at a time, then moving on to the next technical business challenge one may be interested in pursuing.
In other words, life extension is about living one's life out of the box, free of the set patterns and time constraints that people live by back at home.
It is no coincidence that the concept of radical life extension is very attractive to many expats I have brought the subject up in conversations with.
Radical life extension is probably unappealing to those who define themselves and want to live their lives according to the conventional life cycle. This is fine and I accept this.
However, it is very appealing to those who view the conventional life cycle as a prison that they seek to break free of. It is appealing to those who seek the limitless openness of the undiscovered country that lies beyond.
kurt,
ReplyDeleteIf I may be a buttinski . . . what specific aspects and applications of life extension to you prescribe to, and which do you see the most immediate hope for? What is different from the path that you would have humanity or at least those in the transhumanist movement go down, versus the path that medical research is presently following? What practical roadblocks are in the way, and what is your interpretation of why they are there?
Thanks.
Yours,
Rus
Russ,
ReplyDeleteWhat I do presently is quite mundane and may or may not work. I take CoQ-10, Resveratrol, and Carnosine. I lift weights and, more controversially, chelated with ALA for 18 months to remove mercury from my body and mind.
What do I see in the next dacade or so? I think the first stem-cell based regenerative medicine will become available. There is likely to be a Beta-amyloid vaccine (to prevent Alzheimer's).
I think the key developments in the next two decades will be in regenerative medicine and therapies to repair or replace damaged mitochondria. I think these two things will repair most (not all) aging damage.
I think Aubrey de Grey's SENS is essentially the correct way to go. But I have some differences with him with regards to WILT (for cancer prevention) and the AGE crosslink issue (I think this is less significant that he does).
The roadblocks for effective anti-aging medicine are mostly regulatory. The FDA does not currently consider aging itself to be a pathological medical condition (even though it obviously is). So, they will not approve any medical therapy designed to combat aging itself. So, anti-aging therapies have to be targeted for another disease state. For example, the cross link breakers would be targeted for diabedes. The mitochodrial repair/replacement therapies targeted for "metabolic disease", etc.
Also, much stuff can be commercialized in the form of supplements (e.g. resveratrol) and, thus, bypass the FDA completely. The other approach is medical tourism, which is becoming big business. I expect the first effective stem cell therapies to become available in Asia before the U.S.
The other roadblock is cultural within the medical community. I am refering to the "civil engineering" paradigm that is assumed by all MD's. This is where the body is treated as a static structure, like a car or a building. This is the reason why the medical industry focuses on surgery and medical devices rather than truly understanding the underlying biochemistry, then developing a biological solution to medical problems.
Biology is inherently dynamic. It has self-repair/self-regenerative capability. I believe the restoration and enhancement of this is the key to curing aging.
I will also say that transhumanists comprise a very small subset of those who are interested in curing aging. For every self-described transhumanist, there is probably 10 (if not a 100) people who are interested in radical life extension.
Transhumanism may or many not be a utopian movement. Some of them certainly sound like utopian. However, most are not. I will say that "H+" magazine in no way implies a utopian movement. To me, it looks no different than a glossy computer magazine or the more commercial parts of Wired magazine.
A thought experiment.
ReplyDelete1. I like Skittles candy a lot.
2. A scientist can fortify Skittles candy with all the essential vitamins, nutrients, amino acids, and fiber necessary to my health.
3. A even cooler scientist can make Skittles that keep my teeth clean and keep me from getting diabetes.
4. I could eat nothing but Skittles for the rest of my life.
5. A trans-humanist scientist could further modify the "molecular substrates" in my head that would make me bored or depressed by eating nothing but my favorite candy for eternity.
Would we not pity the poor drone stuck in this paradise? Does our pity come from a "deathist" vantage point?
Each of the troubling parts of perpetual candy consumption (health, decay, boredom, depression) have been handily bleached away. So what's wrong with this form of paradise-engineering? By all accounts everyone is happy forever and ever. Done!
Russ,
ReplyDeleteThe real source of breakthroughs in the coming decades are going to come from a decentralized network of biohackers. The tools and instruments of biotech tend to follow a Moore's law like progression in capability and cost. Today, a well equipped biotech lab may have $250,000 worth of apparatus, instruments, and supplies in it. This cost will decline in the coming years.
It is, therefor, likely that we will see the emergence of a biohacker community in the next decade that is much like the electronic hardware/software hacker community we have seen since the 1970's. I believe that such a decentralized network will radically accelerate the rate of development in biotechnology that will have profound impacts on health care and longevity.
Think of present day industry as the mainframe era of medicine. The biohackers will bring us into the PC era of medicine, with advances coming much faster than they do now. We will all benefit from this development.
Peter: "Our entire material, psychological and spiritual essences are defined by the cycles within this fairly constant range, which is why folks see your dream as beyond the human and therefore inaccessible in meaning."
ReplyDeleteOr in other words: we are defined by our limits. But I define myself by other things. Being middle-aged and vulnerable to headaches is not a central, defining feature of my identity. Loving my family and enjoying Shakespeare is.
Also, you are basically saying that if things have always been a certain way, then we should accept it as something good. Go tell it to the poor and the sick who wish to stop being poor and sick to enjoy some good life. Go tell it to wheelchair users who wish to walk again.
No, I don't accept this. One of the defining features of my, our, humanity, is refusing to accept being doomed to unhappiness and look for something more and something better.
Rus: "Similarly, we should not be shutting down a human body thinking we've safely uploaded the person."
But we are not talking of imposing this on others. That would be fascism _regardless_ of one's personal opinion on uploading - one just must not force others to do things his way. I would never think of "shutting down" _your_ body. But I claim the right to do what I want with _my_ body as long as I don't harm others.
giulio/kurt
ReplyDeleteThe desire to cure aging is motivated by the desire for openness. To live a life free of a fixed horizon.
There is one and only one legitimate definition of "grown up" and that is accepting responsibility of one's own actions.
In other words, life extension is about living one's life out of the box, free of the set patterns
One of the defining features of my, our, humanity, is refusing to accept being doomed to unhappiness and look for something more and something better.
Also, you are basically saying that if things have always been a certain way, then we should accept it as something good.
But we are not talking of imposing this on others. That would be fascism
Being middle-aged and vulnerable to headaches is not a central, defining feature of my identity.
Go tell it to wheelchair users who wish to walk again.
You may not have made very much progress yet in actually extending life and abolishing disease, but you certainly are advancing the soaring rhetoric by leaps and bounds. Your demonizing of sceptics (you know, the warped, unhappy death-lovers) is coming along nicely too, although you do have quite a few models to inspire you there. One does wonder whether Phillipe's goal of getting billions of people to see things your way is more pressing for you than actually extending anybody's healthy lifespan.
Hi kurt,
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm just clearing through a few long days of committed activity, and want to look into your response tonight, and then maybe tomorrow night as well, depending on where my research into what you say leads me. I may or may not have something to add or say about it, but I do appreciate your comment.
Yours,
Rus
~~~~
Hi giulio,
But we are not talking of imposing this on others. That would be fascism _regardless_ of one's personal opinion on uploading - one just must not force others to do things his way. I would never think of "shutting down" _your_ body. But I claim the right to do what I want with _my_ body as long as I don't harm others.
Your attitude is similar to someone who would favor abortion, that if it cannot be proven that a murder is taking place, then no one can be convicted, and it comes down to a matter of opinion. In the case of shutting down your own body, you are saying that if society cannot prove that it is suicide, then they must leave you to your opinion, and allow it.
Taking it outside of legality, this upload/download/suicide would be assisted, similar to Kevorkian assisted suicides, which are illegal in the USA, and considered murder on Kevorkian's part. Therefore for those who would be assisting you, just as you would have the decided opinion that you are not committing suicide, they would have to have the decided opinion that they are not murdering you. Unless, that is, we overturn the laws that convicted Kevorkian, either that or we included legalizing suicide and killing when it is okay with the person who would be dying.
I am careful here not to assume that the dying and suicide is in fact taking place, without proving it, something I would not assume to be able to do other than with legal guidelines, and I am careful not to hold an opinion as to whether death would indeed take place under such circumstances, as we simply do not know for sure. After all, we cannot be sure that shutting down a body and "leaving this world" is not liberating for the spirit. It's all "opinion"--as there is no proof other than falling back on what is socially accepted, what is legal and the assumptions that lead to laws against murder and suicide.
So, as with any such rule, we must make a social decision. In the USA, we decided that black people were only 0.6 human, so that in certain circumstances, it was okay to hang them by trees. When we decided that they were 100% human, this was not okay anymore. Same with woman, in societies wherein they are consider human, to have a consciousness or soul equal to a man's, men cannot so soon abuse them or make opinionated decisions about when and where they should kill them, especially in the cases of controlling their wives. Same with animals, if we decide that they are fully conscious and their lives are equally important, that they are not zombies, we must decided to protect their lives instead of killing them for food and such.
What you say is a personal opinion, is ultimately a social opinion. Societies decide what and therefore who is too valuable to kill. In a sense societies decided who to accept into the fold. It is not an isolated opinion to use freely, unless society says so, or unless you go off onto a deserted island or into the deep woods to be a hermit.
Fascism as such does not necessarily apply to a social decision to disallow you to shut down your body.
Yours,
Rus
Rus: "Fascism as such does not necessarily apply to a social decision to disallow you to shut down your body."
ReplyDeleteYes, it does. I claim the right to commit suicide if I want to. Without harming others in the process of course. My body and identity don't belong to the society. They belong to me.
Suicide is a very sad thing, and I am sad thinking of the very deep unhappiness that pushes people to commit suicide. Of course, those who really want to commit suicide just do it. What can society do to them? Put the corpse in jail?
As I said I think suicide is very sad, but I think if someone really wants to die society should not interfere. And I admire Kevorkian for standing by what he and others think is right regardless of the opinion of the majority. Who is he harming? There is no such a thing as a victimless crime you know.
Giulio Prisco
http://cosmeng.org/
Hi Giulio,
ReplyDeleteYou say:
Of course, those who really want to commit suicide just do it. What can society do to them? Put the corpse in jail?
If society decides that you are an important part of society, then it is not fascism to make it illegal to commit suicide. Furthermore, such law can be enforced if the person who attempted suicide lives.
I have worked with these people. Three come to mind, one jumped from a very high roof causing herself serious internal injury, another drank Drano and lived for a few years before dying of complications from the burns, and another shot himself in the head, leaving himself paralyzed on one size and with serious short term memory impairment among his ailments. There are others, but each of the three did not want to do it again afterward. This is most common, to hear that as soon as someone jumped off a bridge, before hitting water, they realized they did not want to commit suicide anymore.
The issue of allowing or not allowing suicide is simply not as black and white you say. There are serious gray areas to be considered, and as applicable to the transhumanism conversation, the issues I put forward in my last post. But for the case of mere suicide, with no delusions of the surety of the success of being uploaded and downloaded involved, imagine two friends in a conversation . . .
Terry: Gee, George, things are so tough, I think I will commit suicide tonight.
George: That's too bad, Terry. I've enjoyed being your friend, but if you think you should commit suicide, far be it from me to exercise my fascist tendencies. In fact, I've always admired Kevorkian. May I help?
Terry: As a friend, you could push me off the cliff. Would you?
George: Yes, let's go there now.
You said:
As I said I think suicide is very sad, but I think if someone really wants to die society should not interfere.
Others, non-fascist others, will disagree with you. And if enough do, then in a democratic society, your ideas about this would not prevail. (This would be true of a fascist society as well, but it does not take a fascist to try to save you from killing yourself.)
The essential issues that have to do with uploading and downloading, people, where there is no way of knowing that it works . . . we might as well put this aspect of "transhumanism" into the category of suicide.
Yours,
Rus
Call it synchronicity, but I just started searching for articles I might link to next Tuesday in Poetry & Poets in Rags--something I do at least each morning and before I go to bed--and immediately I bump into this one, which illustrates important points, esp. someone who attempted before and, not only does not want to kill herself anymore, but wants to keep others from suicide as well: Watertown Daily News: SLU grad hopes poems help hurting teens.
ReplyDeleteYours,
Rus
Russ and Giulio,
ReplyDeleteI can't help but comment on the suicide thing. I'm a young healthy person with a great future. If there is a good job opportunity, a chance to make a big sale, or business opportunity say like in Tokyo or Singapore; I would be on the next plane. It is unthinkable that physiological limitations would ever be a part of the equation. This is real freedom that I consider to be an INHERENT part of my life and identity. Also, since I expect to make it (to when we get effective anti-aging medical technology). So, I expect the world to always be my oyster. So, of course I would never contemplate suicide.
I believe the expression is, "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem".
However, if I was old or had some incurable medical condition that prevented me from being able to live the open life that I take for granted now, I would have to be honest and say that I could possibly think about suicide. I mean, why should I be expected to live in a condition where the world is not my oyster. Such a situation is unacceptable to me. Of course, I would try to find a way to solve whatever problem I may have. But I would have to say that, in this case, the problem is not temporary, it is permanent.
In this case, the expression changes. Suicide is a permanent solution to a permanent problem. Thus, it becomes acceptable in my mind.
If society decides that you are an important part of society, then it is not fascism to make it illegal to commit suicide.
True, but if society values me so much, then it can certainly show its sincerity by developing effective anti-aging technology. If it doesn't, then it just shows its insincerity.
I think we would all agree that life without freedom is no life at all.
Hi kurt,
ReplyDeleteI don't have much time to get into this as I am late getting up to get to work but, we need to be sure that transhumanism, as it reaches for immortality, is not applying faddish opinions and attitudes of our time, that it is rooted instead in wisdom. Although I may or may not "agree that life without freedom is no life at all," if that is something that we can now say that we can all agree on, we may find this not to be such a popular attitude months, years, or decades from now. For one, there is an unaddressed issue involved of how much we are each part of each other. Number two, we are in a time period where we are exploring the assumption of life without a creator. One thing we can all agree on, is that we are going down ism tangents of our times, not of all times.
Yours,
Rus
Hello Russ,
ReplyDeletewe need to be sure that transhumanism, as it reaches for immortality, is not applying faddish opinions and attitudes of our time, that it is rooted instead in wisdom.
You are putting the cart before the horse. You are dying of a progressive disease. Do you go through endless philosophical debate about what you are going to do in life once you are cured? Or do you cure the disease and then figure out where you want to go in life later?
I say we cure aging first. Then we have all the time in the world to sit around at our favorite coffee shops and debate philosophy.
For one, there is an unaddressed issue involved of how much we are each part of each other.
If other people feel that I am an indispensable part of them, then they can damn well show their sincerity by supporting SENS and other technological attempts to cure aging for me. If they don't, they are insincere and deserve only contempt.
Number two, we are in a time period where we are exploring the assumption of life without a creator.
Since this "creator" could not be bothered to do the job right in first place and make us last, it is reasonable to say that it has forfeited any relevancy in how we choose to resolve these issues on our own.
It is time for the people and entities who claim to want the best for me to step up to the plate. If they're not willing to do this, then they have no business objecting when I decide to step up to the plate for myself.
Hi kurt9,
ReplyDeleteYou were doing well, until you got to the part about the creator not doing the job right in the first place. If you assume that this creator has omniscience, and if we can assume that you don't, then that creator has been doing the job right in the first place, and you would be wrong. With such a stance, you completely undermine your philosophy.
Also, I am not putting the cart before the horse by insisting that you back up your stance with wisdom and not with faddish arguments. We are never putting the cart before the horse by applying wisdom instead of faddish opinions. I really wish you had not ended with that statement of arrogance about a creator not doing the job right, because it contaminates your call to urgency to even do faddish things to try to stop aging. Because at that point, you were talking as if you were not only urgent, but desperate to stop the aging process.
So what should I say? Should I agree with you that in this particular case we throw wisdom out the window and go with faddish opinions? Is this the one time we would ever do that? If we were all starving and didn't know the flora, would we all try this or that plant and see if they helped? Would grazing grass work? I mean, we're starving. But . . . we do this already, and apply wisdom and scientific processes to this, looking for what's good, what's bad, evidently just not fast enough for you.
However, the particular faddish opinion I was speaking of, had to do with suicide, the idea that it might be okay to let people do it. You had stated that if society valued you so highly, they would show sincerity by creating anti-aging treatments for you. You cannot see that this is a fad? What insincerity are you speaking of? Are you trying to make the rest of society feel guilty for your impending death? Let me explain something to you. If you don't die of some disease or accident beforehand, you will die at a ripe old age. And we need to be seriously concerned that people like Giulio will try some upload/download stunt and pull others into a veritable suicide pact. Yourself being relatively young, the advances we make in the upcoming decades will have a lot to do in determining what this ripe old age is, factoring in your individual genetics and such.
Now, your final point. What is it exactly that people are objecting to you doing? I read above how you personally are stepping up to the plate. It sounded good to me, but I still have not had a chance to look into the details of your regimen. I did not and do not object to it. Who is? And what points to these people tend to make when they object?
If other people feel that I am an indispensable part of them, then they can damn well show their sincerity by supporting SENS and other technological attempts to cure aging for me. If they don't, they are insincere and deserve only contempt.
Contempt? Should this transhumanist movement, which strives for immortality, have contempt?
Yours,
Rus
Now, if all transhumanists must die anyway, I can help. I want to pass this list on, and I love that it comes under the category of "Travel Picks," but I hate that it speaks of "final rest" because that means I'll have to put up with my CPAP machine for all eternity:
ReplyDeleteReuters: Travel Picks: World's 10 best places of final rest
Before clicking, though, think a minute. If the best place of final rest is not an Egyptian pyramid--and I agree, it's not--then what?
Yours,
Rus
Russ,
ReplyDeleteI'm not religious. So I don't consider religious arguments relevant to my personal life choices. I just thought it unreasonable for you to apply religious arguments to those who are obviously not religious. If I offended you with my creator comments, I apologize.
You had stated that if society valued you so highly, they would show sincerity by creating anti-aging treatments for you. You cannot see that this is a fad? What insincerity are you speaking of?
Curing aging is certainly no more faddish than curing any other disease such as cancer or small pox.
The insincerity that I speak of is this: Society would value me because of something that I can do to benefit it. Obviously, the more functional my mind and body are, the more I can benefit society. Curing aging (and other enhancements) will increase my productivity and, thus, my ability to do things that benefit society (like developing fusion power, for example). If society does not want to cure aging, then it is not sincere in its desire to increase my productivity and, hence, my ability to do things to benefit society.
I'm on your side with regards to suicide. I know three people who have (successfully) killed themselves. All of them were seriously troubled. Suicide is generally not a rational thing to do. As I stated earlier, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
You say you have no problem with my current regime as well as the use of SENS technology to extend youthful life span. I assume then that you have no problem with going for cryonic suspension in the event of my de-animation (my word for death).
Hi kurt,
ReplyDeleteBy the way, when addressing me, as opposed to some other who's name sounds like mine, the spelling is R-U-S, one S. I don't recognize the two-S spelling as being my name.
But no, you did not offend me. It was not that you made a creator argument, but that the particular argument you chose undermined your credibility. You may simply have not fully thought it through. It is currently a common pose to take, that if there is a creator God, s/he screwed things up. The fun of the pose is that it makes you right while a supposed creator God is wrong--which of course is ridiculous.
If society does not want to cure aging, then it is not sincere in its desire to increase my productivity and, hence, my ability to do things to benefit society.
But, all of society would have to hold to your opinions about transhumanism in order to be insincere this way. If much of society does not hold to your opinions, then society may be very sincere. Also, I see you are assuming here that society values you because of your productivity. This may not be the value that you have at all. It may be your being that is valuable. Productivity may have nothing to do with it, or very little do with your particular value to society. In fact, productivity assumes the physical. There may be nothing at all physical about your value either. Your body and your works may be useless. Consider vegetables and near vegetables.
I assume then that you have no problem with going for cryonic suspension in the event of my de-animation (my word for death).
It does not matter if I have a problem with it. That it has never worked is the problem with it.
Yours,
Rus
kurt said:
ReplyDeletede-animation (my word for death)
I addressed a counterpoint to the idea inherent in this belief, wherein de-animation would equal death, when I posted Sylvia Plath's poem "Mirror". The particular belief involved is the belief that the death of the body is the death of the self or the death of whatever that is which distinguishes us from zombies acting just like us, that which we each touch upon subjectively, that makes each of us a Who versus an It, but which also cannot me measured objectively, but possibly can be accessed mystically or psychically, depending on how it might be that we are each interact or are bonded together spiritually, possibly in total.
When we refer to someone's "death" and intend to refer to the death of the body, we can say that we are talking about de-animation, as you say, versus the zilching of the spirit/consciousness/and/or soul, that which we are, our first or primary experience. Thus, "de-animation" does not cover all the denotations, connotations, and definitions that the broader word "death" covers. Indeed, de-animation may not cover nor mirror the most important deaths at all, that of ourselves.
I just ran across another poem, "I am only the house of your beloved" that begins with this translation of Rumi:
I am only the house of your beloved,
not the beloved herself:
true love is for the treasure,
not for the coffer that contains it.
Let's explore some possible rules for how the self-spirit that we are "follows" the body which "contains" us, or "mirrors" us. Imagine in Star Trek, Spock getting "beamed down" to earth. The first assumption that needs to be made, is that if Spock was demolecularized, stored for a moment, and remolecularized on earth, that the self who is Spock follows, and that what has been "beamed down" is not a mere body, a zombie of Spock's mirror, Spock's container. We have no reason to believe for it, nor otherwise, but let's assume it.
And here we have our first leap of faith, with a problem. Do we assume that the reason Spock has "entered" or "followed" the body down to earth, is that there is physical proximity? If the Starship Enterprise could beam Spock down when 1 million miles away, assuming a machine properly tuned, would this also mean that Spock's spirit could follow Spock's body 1 million light years away? Let's make this our second assumption, that proximity has nothing to do with it, because the laws of the spirit have nothing to do with physical laws. And we'll even have a corollary, that time travel would be possible for the spirit if it were possible for the machine to transcend the physical limitations. I believe there have been episodes of Star Trek wherein Spock has been beamed back in time. In fact, I remember one that had him beamed back in time onto earth.
Let's say the machine jams, and before Scotty can fix the problem, 10 billion "Spocks" gets beamed down to earth. It could then be very fair to ask, "Which of these 'Spocks' is not a zombie, which is Spock actualized onto planet earth?" And what if these Spock zombies were sprayed into different time periods? This could mirror precisely how earth was populated, by a bunch of Spock zombies like you all are (or a bunch of Spock bodies with a bunch of Spock self-spirits like we all are).
Tricky questions, which contain assumptions, the most obvious being the assumption that there would not be a creation of 10 billion Spock spirit-selves to take their places in front of and within the 10 billion mirror/containers. Of course, when questioning that assumption, we present the possibility, or the counter-assumption, that by creating mirrors/containers with Spock reflections, zombies are not created at all, but 10 billion Spocks, the idea that in the law of the spirit, whenever a mirror/container is created, a spirit/self will take its place in front of and within such a mirror/container.
Of course, just as I have been assuming that you aren't a zombie, I have been assuming that Spock wouldn't be. He isn't, though, is he. Spock is a fictitious character in a TV series and some movies. And here we may take another step. As movie technology increases, when might a Spock be created that is so realistic, that we could make the assumption that it has a self-spirit while the movie is playing? This would necessitate technology approximate to that entailed with beaming someone down to earth, and that entailed with the transhumanist's idea of uploading someone for later download. We could each attain immortality by being on transhumanistic DVDs, and rely on Scottys to "beam us down" from time to time, to play us, as it were. Favorite people, of course, would get played more than others. And those who get played would then be able to play others. We should choose, not only not to play mass murderers, but those who would play mass murderers if played. We need this law, and possibly with the penalty of death (and here I refer to DVD termination) for repeat offenders.
Okay, so we have stepped back in time to the early days of Star Trek. Some of us at that time were in schoolyards pondering the ancient question that asks whether for each thought, feeling, and memory that we have, is there a mirror in the physical world, and if this were so, what could this mean? We knew such a quest would not prove anything, but we had a hunch that everywhere we investigated such a possibility, it might be so. We were each Newton under the tree when an apple fell on our heads, which caused vibrations through our skulls, which caused our brains to hurt and vibrate questions into our minds. We each were "The Don" swinging the bat as our minds decided to, and we could feel the impact and knew where the ball was physically going. And we asked, "How deep is this interaction?" It seemed at the time that it was fairly thorough, which scientific investigation bears out. Mind over matter?, matter over mind?, superdeterminism?. And can we even alter the various disciplines of physical science, to align them, to make a super-consistent, uni-scientific model of the world? And if we did this, what would it mean? Would it mean anything? Nowadays, we do this, and make assumptions because we can.
But at no time should we get lost in these assumptions that our bodies are us in total, that there is not the wisdom to hang onto so as not to get lost in the mirror, that we can realize with Plath's speaker, "I have looked at it so long/I think it is a part of my heart" and then hold onto the echo of Rumi's speaker saying, "I am only the house of your beloved." This is merely the wisdom we began the quest with. We knew this as adolescents. Some prodigies would say they knew it in kindergarten.
Even though we can find parallels of our self/spirit to our body, and we who have sight do this each morning when we look into our mirrors, we have never touched on how the mirror comes before the spirit-person, or the spirit-person comes before the mirror. We just don't know. While science has made its dramatic strides forward, our studies of the psychic and the mystic have taken a back seat, and remained with their mysteries. We may never be able to study them as we do the hard sciences.
Yours,
Rus
But, all of society would have to hold to your opinions about transhumanism in order to be insincere this way.
ReplyDeleteYou are not correctly understanding my point. If society values me sufficiently to insist that I stick around, then it should put forth effort to make me a happy camper. Such a society does not have to accept my choices as its own. It only has to accept my right to my choices as the "price" it pays to me to stick around.
Its no different than an employer who values a key employee. That employer will put forth effort to provide some measure of satisfaction so that the key employee stays (rather than going to work for the competition). If such an employer is unwilling to do this, it is insincere in its desire to retain the key employee. By "sweetening" the offer to the key employee, the employer is showing sincerity in its desire to retain the key employee.
Likewise, by at least allowing private individuals to develop and commercialize effective anti-aging therapies, society is demonstrating its sincerity in its proclamation that it values me as a "key member".
The link is to an article that suggests that transhumanism should be considered a form of personal risk management:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001491.php
Hi kurt,
ReplyDeleteHowever, I understood you completely.
And still, you are holding to an opinion that society may not take up. Thus society may be quite sincere, even though your objection is that it is necessarily "not sincere". To uphold your opinion, you would need to decidedly convince society of your point; society would then need to not do what you want it to; and then you could say that it is insincere in matters of your desires.
You still need to overcome this. Adding to your opinion, one which society may not hold to, does not "push" society into insincerity. What it furthers is the tangent of opinion that society as a whole may not be following.
Remember, it is the insincerity of society that I addressed, not whether you or society had correct stances. Let's assume that you are correct about how an employer should treat employees. If the employer does not think so, then he or she would be sincere when not treating employees the way you would, or the way you think he or she should.
Yours,
Rus
What I find most disconcerting about those who criticize the transhumanist idea(l)s is that they offer no real alternatives. What do you think we should do, just stop trying to figure things out and fix stuff and sit down and wait for the next meteor to hit us or the next super disease to mutate into existence? We are fighting entropy here, for God's sake! (pun intended). Perhaps if transhumanists called themselves entropy fighters there wouldn't be so much arguing going on. Not that verbal debate is to be discouraged but I have the increasing feeling that many of the critics, especially those who use the most sophisticated and sarcastic remarks are nothing more than envious and pessimistic whiners and naysayers oblivious to the fact that they are being quite incoherent in their utterances. Or maybe you just love playing devil's advocates. How can you criticize those who want to avoid death and suffering by proclaiming that it is wrong because it will fail? You guys subscribed yourselves to failure from the very beginning if what you apparently advocate is true. But I doubt that. On the contrary, I'm sure you will be among the first ones to take advantage of the anti ageing technologies once they become available in a safe and verified form, you hypocrites. And if you don't then kudos to you for being consistent, may you RIP.
ReplyDeleteA latecomer:
ReplyDeleteI have only just stumbled here by virtue of looking for a particular image, and at the time of writing this, haven't browsed through the blog, but boy oh boy, based on the quality of the responses to this post alone I think I ought to subscribe.....
Give me half a chance & I'll try to keep up!
It is after all a mad mad mad......
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ReplyDeleteYour attitude is similar to someone who would favor abortion, that if it cannot be proven that a murder is taking place, then no one can be convicted, and it comes down to a matter of opinion. estetik, burun estetigi , gögüs büyütme In the case of shutting down your own body, you are saying that if society cannot prove that it is suicide, then they must leave you to your opinion, and allow it. gögüs estetigi, gögüs küçültme, vajina daraltma
ReplyDeleteTaking it outside of legality, this upload/download/suicide would be assisted, similar to Kevorkian assisted suicides, which are illegal in the USA, and considered murder on Kevorkian's part. lazer epilasyon, karin estetigi Therefore for those who would be assisting you, just as you would have the decided opinion that you are not committing suicide, they would have to have the decided opinion that they are not murdering you. estetik Unless, that is, we overturn the laws that convicted Kevorkian, either that or we included legalizing suicide and killing when it is okay with the person who would be dying. karin ameliyatlari, saç ekimi