Transhumanism

Transhumanism

According to Francis Fukuyama, transhumanism is “the most dangerous idea in today’s world”. In Foreign Policy, September/October 2004, he wrote:

“For the last several decades, a strange liberation movement has grown within the developed world. Its crusaders aim much higher than civil rights campaigners, feminists, or gayrights advocates. They want nothing less than to liberate the human race from its biological constraints. As “transhumanists” see it, humans must wrest their biological destiny from evolution’s blind process of random variation and adaptation and move to the next stage as a species”.

This is a really excellent outline of the transhumanist worldview, coming from one of its sworn enemies.

Transhumanism is certainly a liberation movement and, as Fukuyama says, one that aims very high. We want to liberate the human race from our biological constraints, including disease, stupidity, aging, and death. We, the result of a long “blind” Darwinian evolutionary process driven by random variation and adaptation, will soon acquire the capability to purposefully drive our evolution. Many transhumanists also think that someday we will transcend biology itself, and nobody said it better than (of course) Sir Arthur Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey (Clarke’s book, not Kubrick’s movie), in a passage titled “Experiment” which explains the origins of the monolith:

And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving toward new goals. The first explorers of Earth had long since come to the limits of flesh and blood; as soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move. First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and of plastic.

In these, they roamed among the stars. They no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships.

But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed. In their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. They could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter.

Into pure energy, therefore, they presently transformed themselves; and on a thousand worlds, the empty shells they had discarded twitched for a while in a mindless dance of death, then crumbled into rusty

Now they were lords of the galaxy, and beyond the reach of time. They could rove at will among the stars, and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea.

And they still watched over the experiments their ancestors had started, so long ago.

I have been a transhumanist, initially without knowing that such a thing as transhumanism existed, ever since reading these words. Since I was a teenager I have been thinking that, as soon as our machines will be better than our bodies, it will be time to move. First our brains, and then our thoughts alone, we will transfer into shining new homes of metal and of plastic. And then, we will learn to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve our thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. We will become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter.

One “official” definition of transhumanism, as far as such a thing can exist given the “let 1000 flowers bloom” diversity in the transhumanist movement, is the Transhumanist Declaration:

(1) Humanity will be radically changed by technology in the future. We foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition, including such parameters as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, suffering, and our confinement to the planet earth.

(2) Systematic research should be put into understanding these coming developments and their long-term consequences.

(3) Transhumanists think that by being generally open and embracing of new technology we have a better chance of turning it to our advantage than if we try to ban or prohibit it.

(4) Transhumanists advocate the moral right for those who so wish to use technology to extend their mental and physical (including reproductive) capacities and to improve their control over their own lives. We seek personal growth beyond our current biological limitations.

(5) In planning for the future, it is mandatory to take into account the prospect of dramatic progress in technological capabilities. It would be tragic if the potential benefits failed to materialize because of technophobia and unnecessary prohibitions. On the other hand, it would also be tragic if intelligent life went extinct because of some disaster or war involving advanced technologies.

(6) We need to create forums where people can rationally debate what needs to be done, and a social order where responsible decisions can be implemented.

(7) Transhumanism advocates the well- being of all sentience (whether in artificial intellects, humans, posthumans, or non- human animals) and encompasses many principles of modern humanism. Transhumanism does not support any particular party, politician or political platform.

Reading the Transhumanist Declaration, it is easy to see that the core ideas are in points 1 and 4, whereas the other points seem “defensive” statements thrown in the declaration at a later stage to make it more politically correct. Of course, the wording of the Declaration was chosen in such a way as to achieve agreement between several people and groups, each with a specific sensibility, perception and interpretation of transhumanism. 

Posted by G.P. on 11/27 at 05:47 AM
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