If the technology existed, how far would you be willing to go in the pursuit of transhumanism?
1. Nowhere: I would not accept any technology or other assistance into my body, including medical appliances like pacemakers to save my life.
2. Where I am right now: I would accept technologies that would help me to function normally. No drastic measures though.
3. Beyond normal, merging of body: I would accept technologies, nano/machine or genetic, to improve my health to optimal and somewhat beyond, to ensure a healthy life until I die
4. Merging of body and life extension : I would accept #3, and also allow my body to live healthfully indefinitely (aka, until an accident inevitably kills me, or I get tired of living) at an age of my choice
5. Merging of body and mind: I would link my thinking capacity to technologies, genetic or mechanic, which would intensely increase my cognitive abilities, to the point of being able to multitask managing multiple complex tasks, to hold vast amounts of information and models to be called at will, to be able to reason with unthinkable speed and depth, etc
6. Beyond merging: I would not mind totally leaving human genetics behind, and modifying myself every day with new advances in technology, up to and including having powers which mythologies once attributed to the gods.
7. Beyond material existence: I would accept a total transformation. For example, I would consent to becoming part of a computer program, if it would mean I would become immortal.
Please choose a number and explain why you chose it. Add your response to either the video’s comments section, or better yet, add a video response.
if there were a #8, i would chose that, so i would definitely go with #7.
why? if i were immortal, i could do more to fix the world. given a giant amount of time, i think i could make a significant change, and maybe even create utopia
Comment by cozmikzen — July 31, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
Nice comment..Coz…
Comment by 2bsirius — August 3, 2008 @ 7:41 pm
Hiya, watched some of your YouTube videos.
This is a good question too.
I’d go the whole hog with (cautious) transhumanism, simply put, ‘because I can’ (assuming that were true) and because I see no fundamental reason for to assume that things are best the way they are now. Of course we could make things demonstrably worse, which is why I put ‘cautious’ there.
But I’m not entirely sure about the ‘ordinality’ of your steps 1-7. That is, I’ve nothing in principle against uploading my mind to a computer, it’s not ‘too extreme’; but I’m not sure it is cooler/better than altering my body with all sort of stuff and keeping a physically extended form. Maybe a human-on-silicon would go all “hmm how groovy would it be to jump around in snow, or lie in a bed”. If we /simulate/ physical extension in the silicon VR then of course the distinction becomes smaller; but there would still be a difference between jumping in virtual snow and jumping in real snow, and ideally (?) we’d be aware of that distinction (contra ‘the Matrix’).
It would probably be neat if we could ‘upload our mind’ into a VR while keeping our RL bodies. We’d soon figure out if we (individually?) preferred either, or both.
It would all also depend on the cost (to people, environment…) of applying this technology though.
Comment by GroovingClockwork — September 3, 2008 @ 2:07 am
Hello,
I posted a comment here some three days ago; then it showed up as ‘waiting for approval’ (or some such) for a while; now it’s gone. Is this a technical issue or did you find fault with something I wrote…?
Comment by GroovingClockwork — September 4, 2008 @ 6:50 pm
(Huh… now the previous comment does show up again. So, technical issue. Never mind then
Comment by GroovingClockwork — September 4, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
One must consider the long term ramifications of ones actions. If this type of technology became available to the masses of the world, what then? Would the vast majority choose to become somewhat eternal? What would happen to the population? Would this not exacerbate the limited availability of scarce resources leading to major conflicts over them. On the other hand if the technology was limited to just the chosen (politically or financially) few, would they not become the ruling elite, enslaving the masses. To take on God-like powers requires God-like wisdom and understanding. One without the other is not sustainable.
Comment by Ruralman — January 1, 2009 @ 2:31 pm