Transumanar

In defense of “Superlativity”

Many transhumanist ideas are products of fertile and creative imaginations. Some people would add “unhampered by the normal constraints of scientific and philosophical discipline”. Is that so? My answer: NO, or at least not necessarily.

The history of science and engineering show that in some case it is (e.g. perpetual motion machines), and in some cases it is not (e.g. heavier than air flying machines).

A perpetual motion machine is not compatible with the basic laws of physics as they are understood today. This has also been claimed for heavier than air machines, but in that case the claim was wrong.

The history of science and engineering shows that, if something is logically and physically possible, and if there is sufficient demand for it, it will probably be achieved at some point.

Given a highly imaginative engineering project, we have to choose whether to take it seriously as an airplane, or to dismiss it as a perpetual motion machine. This choice depends of course on many factors, including of course scientific and technical knowledge and experience, but also including many unspoken and at times unconscious assumptions, often emotional in nature, about our reality.

Let’s come now to the “superlative” examples.

One of the assumptions I make is that there is no such a thing as “supernatural” - everything in the universe can be, in principle, analyzed by science. According to this assumption, I think our bodies and minds are machines: very complex machines that are not presently understood in great detail, but nonetheless machines whose detailed blueprint can be in principle known, reproduced and improved. There is no mysterious “vital force” or supernatural “essence” forever beyond the domains of scientific analysis and engineering tinkering.

I also assume that I am the information encoded in my brain. Why? Simple - because I don’t see what else I might be. It seems to me that any other assumption would fall into mystic, magic, and supernatural realms that are completely foreign to my basic assumptions about reality.

On the basis of this assumption and conclusion, I think someday we will be able to upload human personalities to suitable computational supports, much longer lived than biological brains. This is, I believe, fully compatible with our current scientific understanding of the universe.

Of course, opinions about development timescales may differ. Ray Kurzweil sees it happening in only a few decades, while other thinkers believe it cannot take less than thousands of years. My own forecast, based only on my engineering intuition and understanding of current developments, is somewhat intermediate: I imagine operational mind uploading technology deployed by the end of this century or in the next century.

This makes me happy for my grandchildren, who will live in a very interesting world, but I don’t see mind uploading developed during my lifetime. So, on the basis that any finite probability is better than zero, I am signed up for cryonic suspension. The “natural vs. supernatural” argument above tells me that cryonics works in principle - there is no mystic “soul” that irretrievably leaves a frozen brain after death by decree of god.

Does it work in practice? Of course I don’t know. I could die in a plane crash without any possibility to retrieve the brain. Or the brain could not reach the cryonic facility in useful time because of legal complications. Or the current cryonic suspension technology could not be suitable. Or the cryonic facility could be bombed by terrorists. Or…

But, on the basis of the considerations above, I am quite willing to try. Actually I think that the odds are not that good (there many things that can go wrong, so there is a high probability that something will go wrong), but a small probability of surviving death is better than no probability of surviving death. Surviving temporary death by cryonics may permit reaching a future where mind uploading technology can provide a much longer life.

And I think the future could be a beautiful and interesting place. Of course it could also be a very ugly place but, one thing is sure, it will be what we make of it. The possibility that I could live to see it gives me hope, energy and drive.

Summary of this long post: I agree that we should not sell unscientific snake-oil, but I think a very long and interesting life enabled by mind uploading technology, and cryonics as a bridge to reach a point in time where this option is available, is an engineering project compatible with our current scientific knowledge. I do not intend to sell this a certainty, but I do intend to propose it as a possibility.

Note: this is just the “cold” vision that has always been proposed by transhumanists, and it is not yet sufficient to make transhumanism emotionally appealing. I will write another post with ideas on how this vision can be expanded to become also emotionally appealing.

Posted by on 11/26 at 07:03 PM

Is this supposed to be a serious defense of superlativity (whatever that is exactly)?!?

There is nothing here but fluffy personal musings.

What a disappointment… :(

Posted by Disinfo on 11/27 at 07:55 PM
Hi Disinfo,

see Dale Carrico’s definition of superlativity:
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2007/10/superlative-summary.html

and his anti-superlative critic of my piece:
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2007/11/giulio-priscos-defense-of-superlative.html

My piece is _meant as_ a list of fluffy personal musings.
G.

Posted by on 11/29 at 07:25 AM
In his comments, Dale politely describes my ideas as “idiocy”. To make his point, he has produced a masterpiece of nonsensical hair-splitting at the grandest level, in the spirit of the best ideologically motivated demonstrations that 2+2=5. Some people have really elevated mental masturbation to a very creative art form.

What he does not like is the “facile reductionism” of considering our bodies and minds as “machines”. Instead, our bodies and minds are “dynamic forces, systems, matrices, organisms”. I do not really understand his point - I consider all these things as complex machines: very complex systems that nonetheless must obey the laws pf physics and can be, in principle, perfectly understood and improved.

A key passage is the following:

“The chief benefit to a Superlative Technocentric in describing a human body as a “machine” rather than a complex system or organism is the stealthy rhetorical work afforded by it at the figurative level, through which the identification of a body as a devised thing presumes in advance much of the conclusion that needs an argument in the first place; namely, that a better, imperishable, super-predicated body could be devised to replace the actually-existing “devised” bodies we live in”.

In other words, considering human bodies and minds as machines (complex, not yet fully understood etc. etc.) opens the doors to the dangerous idea that they can be improved by engineering. This simple common sense is, of course, very dangerous to religious fundamentalists who prefer to think of our bodies and minds as magic and mysterious things that we little people cannot (and should not try to) understand. Instead of trying to understand and improve nature, we should accept their empty words as profound truths, and follow their teaching with reverence and humility.

The rich says to the poor: not only you must remain poor and never try to become rich, but you must also think that being poor is good.

I would call bullshit, but perhaps I am not culturally sophisticated enough.

Beware of religious fundamentalists masquerading as modern intellectuals motivated by philosophical, social, cultural, ecological and political concerns. They are still the same old religious fundamentalists, desperately trying to hide behind big words.

Posted by on 11/29 at 08:55 AM
[C]onsidering human bodies and minds as machines (complex, not yet fully understood etc. etc.) opens the doors to the dangerous idea that they can be improved by engineering. This simple common sense is, of course, very dangerous to religious fundamentalists who prefer to think of our bodies and minds as magic and mysterious things that we little people cannot (and should not try to) understand.

Considering humans as complex organisms leaves open the completely uncontroversial idea that they can be improved through consensual medical therapies. I’m an atheist, dude, not a religious fundamentalist. It’s Technological Immortalists and Robot Cultists who are—if anybody under discussion here is—indulging in magical thinking. I notice that once again you are accusing me of “hiding behind big words” even though I have taken the time to actually offer up an argument explaining in depth why I disagree with you. Believe me, you have nothing to gain from trying to appeal to the anti-intellectual crowd. Take a deep breath, think a bit more, and then offer up a new version of your argument that circumvents the obvious problems I’ve exposed in this early version of yours. It’s not that difficult. d

Posted by Dale Carrico on 11/29 at 02:19 PM
Dale, since I don’t believe magical or supernatural things exist, I can hardly indulge in magical thinking.

What I am saying is that I think my body and my mind are machines (where machine = something that behaves according to physical laws), and that they can be in principle improved by engineering, not only in the sense of tightening a couple of loose screws, but also in the more fundamental sense of a complete redesign and engineering.

You say you are an atheist, and of course I believe you when I say that. Certainly you do not believe in the old bearded guy sitting in the clouds and listening to our prayers. But in your writing I detect some traces of the old religious belief in a mysterious, undefined and undefinable vital vital spirit that differentiates humans from the rest of the universe, and that Thou Shalt Not tinker with.

I don’t make this distinction. I think we are meat machines that evolved into slightly smarter than average meat machines, and are learning to re-engineer our species into better machines.

Posted by on 11/29 at 03:46 PM
Since I don’t believe magical or supernatural things exist, I can hardly indulge in magical thinking.

Look it up.

What I am saying is that I think my body and my mind are machines… and that they can be… improved by engineering, not only in the sense of tightening a couple of loose screws, but also in the more fundamental sense of a complete redesign and engineering.

Yeah, I know that’s what you think. But your body wasn’t “designed.” It isn’t a device. The intuitions that derive from the furniture of the designed world don’t provide you the assurance you attribute to them.

You say you are an atheist, and of course I believe you when I say that… But in your writing I detect some traces of the old religious belief in a mysterious, undefined and undefinable vital vital spirit that differentiates humans from the rest of the universe, and that Thou Shalt Not tinker with.

If that’s what you “detect” it can only be because you are looking for it. I don’t say that anywhere, nor do I believe it. Anybody who isn’t a Robot Cultist is a bioconservative, I suppose? Dumb.

Posted by Dale Carrico on 11/30 at 06:56 AM
My body was not (yet) purposefully designed by an engineer, but evolved according to the more-or-less understood process Darwinian evolution. It is a machine that behaves according to physical laws. Note that today we are making the first baby steps toward designing software, and even hardware, according to similar processes.

Good to hear that you strongly deny hidden fundamentalist and bioluddite motivations. But you frequently do the same, accusing me and others of things that we have never said anywhere, and don’t believe. Like in “well suited to incumbent interests and anti-democratic politics, whatever the professed politics of those who advocate them”. Note that “well suited to fundamentalist and bioluddite politics, whatever the professed politics of those who advocate them” is exactly the same sentence. It seems to me that you do not like the taste of your own medicine.

Posted by on 11/30 at 09:10 AM
Concerning Dale’s “according to Prisco anybody who does not believe as he does that the self is reducible to some unspecified construal of information that is somehow indifferent to the material mode of its instantiation is engaged in mystical, magical, supernatural thinking. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is one of the most facile and careless things I have ever heard in my life”:

I don’t find this so shocking. A simple analogy is: if you backup a program’s source code and its database, recompile and install it on a different computational system (different CPU, different memory hardware, wiring etc.), for which a compiler for the same source is available, everything should work exactly as before, so for all practical purpose this specific construal of information is indifferent to the material mode of its instantiation.

This analogy, which should of course be developed in more detail (actually it has been developed in much more detail by many authors), will probably seem “reductionist” to you because it does not take into account some nebulous property of the brain-mind system, but I think it is basically correct.

Posted by on 11/30 at 11:23 AM
Good to hear that you strongly deny hidden fundamentalist and bioluddite motivations.

Given the ready availability of writings in which I make this endlessly and repeatedly clear I have to say that anybody who would think otherwise is likely either to be illiterate or just stupid.

But you frequently do the same,

No I don’t, actually.

accusing me and others of things that we have never said anywhere, and don’t believe. Like in “well suited to incumbent interests and anti-democratic politics, whatever the professed politics of those who advocate them”.

One of my critiques of superlative technodevelopmental discourses is indeed that it facilitates incumbent interests and comports especially well with anti-democratic politics. I’ve offered up a number of patient explanations as to why I think so. It’s not just some put-down I fire off, there’s an analysis available to support these claims.

I also regularly point out that this is different from the suggestion that people who deploy superlative formulations intend these effects. Obviously, many do not—and this is a point I actually make myself. It seems to me that those who would not intend such effects would want to be especially vigilant about them, and would take my critique seriously rather than dismissing it precisely to the extent that they want to avoid such effects. But, you know, whatever.

Note that “well suited to fundamentalist and bioluddite politics, whatever the professed politics of those who advocate them” is exactly the same sentence.

Of course, that’s not a sentence you actually wrote, now, is it?

You know, I wouldn’t find it surprising that some bioconservatives might find some comfort in some of the things I have written. Especially the more some of the more lefty eco-bioconservative types. I think they are wrong to find such comfort if they do, inasmuch as my formulations conduce better to technoprogressive than bioconservative goals. This is because at the heart of bioconservative arguments is always the moralizing project to “defend” established customs in the name of “nature,” however irrational, unfair, or unpopular. This is not a project that can long prevail in my view in the face of secular democratic multiculture central to my technoprogressive case.

The point is, I would strongly disagree the claim that my formulations are more useful to bioconservatives than technoprogressives, and that is a conversation I welcome because I have reasons to support my position. I don’t think you can hold up your end of a comparable conversation of the greater usefulness of superlative formulations to incumbent interests over democratic ones, and so I welcome that conversation as well.

But instead I’m guessing you’ll just smear me as “using big words” again, or pout that I’m engaging in nothing but “name calling” despite all the careful explanations I offer without getting the same in return.

It seems to me that you do not like the taste of your own medicine.

Good one.

Posted by Dale Carrico on 11/30 at 08:54 PM
You show no sign of understanding my point about reductionism and haven’t yet addressed any of its particulars, preferring as usual to pretend that one’s options on the topic are confined either to Robot Cultism or woo-woo mysticism—which, needless to say (?), is the farthest thing from true—and until you do show some signs of at least basic comprehension of my actual point it would be worse than fruitless and possibly a bit cruel for me to continue to engage you on the topic.

Posted by Dale Carrico on 11/30 at 10:15 PM
Dale, your actual point is quite easy to understand: you claim that analogies such as the one I just offered are “reductionist” (one of the big words so fashionable in academic circles these days), without explaining why reductionism is a bad thing.

Note that reductionism, while of course having its limits as _every_ mental tool to analyze reality, has been one of the main drivers of engineering progress in the last few centuries. This does not mean that it is a perfect approach, but it does mean that dismissing ideas as “reductionist” (as if it were a dirty word) is naive.

So let us come back to my analogy: “If you backup a program’s source code and its database, recompile and install it on a different computational system (different CPU, different memory hardware, wiring etc.), for which a compiler for the same source is available, everything should work exactly as before, so for all practical purpose this specific construal of information is indifferent to the material mode of its instantiation”.

I am the first to admit that it is oversimplified and needs to be developed in much more detail, but think it is basically right. If you think it is basically wrong, could you explain why instead of hiding behind “reductionism”?

Posted by on 12/01 at 07:33 AM
I must be hiding because I’m scared of your scalpel sharp arguments, for which of course my mystical brain is no match. From the post to which you are “responding”:

“Dynamic forces, systems, matrices, organisms are all usefully susceptible of scientific analysis even when they are not machines.... The chief benefit to a Superlative Technocentric in describing a human body as a “machine” rather than a complex system or organism is the stealthy rhetorical work afforded at the figurative level, through which the identification of a body as a[n already] devised thing presumes in advance much that needs argument in the first place; namely, that a[n] imperishable, super-predicated body could be devised to replace the actually-existing “devised” bodies we live in.

“Later, Prisco admits that he reductively assumes: “I am the information encoded in my brain.” Of course, this cannot be literally true unless he is completely insane. He surely means to say that everything he imagines to matter most essentially about himself is information encoded in his brain…

“Of course, such a statement leaves to the side whether the “information” he is talking about consists of his memories, his dispositions, the complex relations among them (among these the relations between conscious, subconscious, and evolved dispositions), information as he would grasp and retrieve it himself, information on the basis of which a being could be modeled who would be indistinguishable from himself to an “outside” observer, and so on. Also, such a statement leaves to the side the crucial point that all information is instantiated on a material carrier, that even a “self” reducible to information on whatever construal would still always be embodied information, and hence it is questionable whether glib declarations about “migrations” of informational selves from bodies into digital networks or what have you are the least bit coherent once one attends to them with any care at all. These are questions that have been addressed at length by… Katherine Hayles in her critiques of Hans Moravec, for example, and in other aspects by Jaron Lanier in his critiques of “Cybernetic Totalism.”

“Prisco extraordinarily claims that “It seems to me that any other assumption would fall into mystic, magic, and supernatural realms that are completely foreign to my basic assumptions about reality.” That is to say, according to Prisco anybody who does not believe as he does that the self is reducible to some unspecified construal of information that is somehow indifferent to the material mode of its instantiation is engaged in mystical, magical, supernatural thinking....

“On the basis of this assumption and conclusion,” Prisco goes on oh so non-mystically, non-magically, non-supernaturally to predict “we will be able to upload human personalities to suitable computational supports, much longer lived than biological brains.” He then assures us, “This is, I believe, fully compatible with our current scientific understanding of the universe.” Never mind that actually existing computers exhibit conspicuous limitations and unreliabilities compared to actually existing biological brains of a kind that non-supernaturalist champions of science might properly be expected not to handwave away, never mind that actual scientists have never even approached a consensus of belief in superlative outcomes of the kind that preoccupy Prisco’s attention.

“The ‘natural vs. supernatural’ argument above tells me that cryonics works in principle—there is no mystic ‘soul’ that irretrievably leaves a frozen brain after death by decree of god.” Needless to say, even in a universe without a bloody-minded sky-daddy to govern us, it is not necessarily the case that bodies or brains “preserved” through processes of freezing or even vitrification will be revivable or retrievable by future medical techniques, and the scientific consensus is not encouraging on this question, handwaving by superlative technocentrics (self-appointed “champions” of science, all) notwithstanding.”

It isn’t “oversimplified” but basically right to say you are a computer, it is plain wrong. To the extent that this stupidity prevails in technocentric professions like coders and engineers it does real damage in the world to no actual scientific benefit. None of what you are saying is common sense, it isn’t scientific, it isn’t “doing something” to create a better future—do you even know what actual political advocacy means, beyond PR spin and membership outreach for marginal membership organizations?—all this cryonics and uploading and Robot God business is just ill-considered indulgence in sf iconography (which as a geek I appreciate enormously myself, in its place) turned into a defensive religious outlook pretending to be policy discourse in a desperate bid not to be dismissed as a cult.

Posted by Dale Carrico on 12/01 at 12:55 PM
Cool design, great info!

Posted by Myron on 07/03 at 08:54 AM