Amor, Eros and Thanatos, the ultimate Posthuman Creative Statement
How big of a hubris is it to formulate all variables of the human state in something like a computer utility? Something like SimMind? And what if what you’d create were so beautiful it would make you lose all sense of meaning, unless it were expressed as a subset of your creatures?
Can all the error’s in a human being be cured, by carefully unweaving the tapestry of who that person is, and recoalescing the psyche? Can all the deficiencies years of pain and hurt and stress have left be edited out?
This sounds so… gothic.... so …emo. However I do think humans are largely defined by their suffering, which is inherent in the human state. Remove that suffering and you get something that is as innocent as it is passive. Our psyche works through a feedback system of stick and carrot, i.e. pain and pleasure. That system is brutally effective for animals ... however we have become something frightfully not animal, so unique I sometimes worry just how unique it is in the bigger picture. Humanity thinks, can set strategies, can plan, can anticipate and can see some of the consequences of its choices, so far on a pathetically limited fashion
… but something uniquely new has started.
If we would be able to depict the essence of a human mind in a really big flowchart, we would probably end up with something abstract and meaningless, in the same way machine code has very little similarity to the intricate aesthetics of a computer program.
However, if we could, could we tidy up all that neurochemistry machine code and reduce it to a higher programming code of more recognizable semiotic signifiers and still retain the essential human? Could we simplify, “macro” the neurological warble and make us see the forest?
I think we could. We could reduce the complexity of the mind and bring it into the realm of insightful yet extremely convoluted variables. We would be able to enter those variables, with explanatory FAQs which would include DNA data to get a human of whatever programmed algorithmic qualities we visualize. We might even be able to reverse large parts of the neurochemistry and DNA of one Mozart based on tinkering with the variables in such a simulation.
Call such a program SimMind, with a supremely easy graphical interface. It doesn’t just simulate a mind, but allows you to create, evolve, tweak and perfect it.
I am not saying humanity will go about it that way; it’s a bit too easy probably. But if we would, a simplified version could already be “in the stores” in 2030, probably in a version of Second Life current at that time.
That brings me to the topic of identity and me.
Using the SimMind I could look at a model of a human mind, the essential coding, the merits of that coding, and add features. Say for instance I want a sane, charming and stable human, but I wish to tinker with the basic composition, and add all the benefits of autism, without any drawbacks. Now what if I would include it all; every single human idiot-savant feature, ranging from a perfect hearing to eidetic memory to perfect arithmic talent, the whole deal, but with no single drawback. To realize that in the flesh would be probably be quite difficult, relative to a normal human, and if I’d look at my valued program, the FAQ readme’s I’d generate about the genes of such a human would suggest it would lie outside the bounds of what be generated with genetic qualities in vitro. If I’d grow such a human in a nearby DNA-vat (tm) the human would be so unique it probably would be unable to breed with garden of Eden variety homo sapiens.
But it would get worse. I could also generate humans with not just qualities maxed out, as if I maxed out a D&D character with all traits at 18, six core classes at epic levels and a pile of feats (or any other metaphor you would like to entertain), I would also be able to elect properties no just defined by quantity (more of everything) but also by unique composition.
I could work through obsession; engineer a human variant so gregarious, so stoned on his/her own psychological hang-ups, that he or she simply couldn’t be unhappy.
Now imagine creating a whole bunch of those, in accordance with your deepest desires and obsessions and fears and aspirations. Would you, when looking at them, a bunch of effectively immortal creatures, with bodies as flawless as nano-replicated diamonds, minds sharpened to perfection with just the right number of hang-ups and obsessions to make them interesting ... would you care living on?
I am fairly certain I would create a subspace in these creatures, in their minds, and house myself there, passive, observer, no longer moved to will, just as a passenger, and live through them. I would, without any doubt whatsoever, elect to dissolve in them, whatever the consequences, in a state of eternal contrition, surrendered to my sloth, experiencing the ride into eternity through their sophisticated ambitions, vices, ego’s and passions.
That is my vision of post humanity. To love my mind children so much, to love their perfection as well as their identity so much, I already at this moment, would embrace sweet oblivion within them, and let my me-ness be borne with the winds of their souls, into a future I can scarcely define or put into words.
It is the most sophisticated death wish I can formulate.
Posted by Khannea Suntzu on 08/06 at 09:08 PM