FAQ III

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="3134cb71erlcgo.jpg"> <div> <B>The Astrolabe</B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>    </B><B> </B></FONT><B>|     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Astrolabe"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <A HREF="http://www.transhumanism.org" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.transhumanism.org"><U><IMG SRC="2e954560.jpg" border=0 width="84" height="86" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="129" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#EEEEEE HEIGHT= 14 WIDTH="123"><div> <A HREF="seattlewta.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Seattle WTA"><U><B>Seattle WTA</B></U></A></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#EEEEEE HEIGHT= 28 WIDTH="123"><div> <A HREF="transhumanist_faq.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Frequently Asked Questions"><U><B>Frequently Asked Questions</B></U></A></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#EEEEEE HEIGHT= 14 WIDTH="123"><div> <A HREF="faq_ii.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="FAQ II"><U><B>FAQ II</B></U></A><B> </B></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#EEEEEE HEIGHT= 28 WIDTH="123"><div> <A HREF="values.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Human Values in a Posthuman World?"><U><B>Human Values in a Posthuman World?</B></U></A></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#EEEEEE HEIGHT= 14 ><NOBR><div> <A HREF="chapter_news_seattle_chapter_news.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="SWTA Forum"><U><B>Seattle Chapter News</B></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#EEEEEE HEIGHT= 14 WIDTH="123"><div> <A HREF="faq_iii_m.htm#back_to_top" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>Back to Top</B></U></A></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="5" CELLSPACING="7" WIDTH="190" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#FFFF80 HEIGHT= 21 WIDTH="53"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="21" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="53" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#996666 WIDTH="96"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="21" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="96" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#336666 HEIGHT= 48 WIDTH="53"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="48" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="53" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=#66CCFF WIDTH="96"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="48" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="96" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#EEEEEE" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I><B>FAQ III</B></I></div> <div>  <A NAME="back_to_top"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <A HREF="#5______transhumanism_as_a_philosophical" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>5. TRANSHUMANISM AS A PHILOSOPHICAL AND CULTURAL VIEWPOINT</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#5_1______what_are_the_philosophical_and" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>5.1. What are the philosophical and cultural antecedents of transhumanism?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#5_2______what_currents_are_there_within_transhumanism_" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>5.2. What currents are there within transhumanism?</B></U></A><B>  Is extropianism the same as transhumanism? </B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#5_3______how_does_transhumanism_relate_to_religion_" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>5.3. How does transhumanism relate to religion?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#5_4______won_t_things_like_uploading" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>5.4. Won't things like uploading, cryonics, and AI fail because they can't preserve or create the soul?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#5_5______what_kind_of_transhumanist_art" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>5.5. What kind of transhumanist art is there?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#6________practicalities" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>6. PRACTICALITIES</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#6_1______what_are_the_reasons_to_expect" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>6.1. What are the reasons to expect these changes?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#6_2______won_t_these_developments_take" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>6.2.  Won't these developments take thousands or millions of years?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#6_3______what_if_it_doesn_t_work_" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>6.3. What if it doesn't work?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#6_4______how_can_i_use_transhumanism_in" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>6.4. How can I use transhumanism in my own life?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#6_5______how_could_i_become_a_posthuman_" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>6.5. How could I become a posthuman?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#6_6______won_t_it_be_boring_to_live" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>6.6. Won't it be boring to live forever in a perfect world?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#6_7______how_can_i_get_involved_and" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>6.7. How can I get involved and contribute?</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="#7_______acknowledgements_and_document" TITLE="FAQ III"><U><B>7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DOCUMENT HISTORY</B></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="5______transhumanism_as_a_philosophical"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5.      TRANSHUMANISM AS A PHILOSOPHICAL AND CULTURAL VIEWPOINT</B></div> <div>  </div> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="5_1______what_are_the_philosophical_and"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5.1      What are the philosophical and cultural antecedents of transhumanism?</B></div> <div> <B>The human desire to acquire posthuman attributes is as ancient as the human species itself. Humans have always sought to expand the boundaries of their existence, be it ecologically, geographically, or mentally. There is a tendency in at least some individuals always to try to find a way around every limitation and obstacle.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Ceremonial burial and preserved fragments of religious writings show that prehistoric humans were deeply disturbed by the death of their loved ones and sought to reduce the cognitive dissonance by postulating an afterlife. Yet, despite the idea of an afterlife, people still endeavored to extend life. In the Sumerian </B><B>Epic of Gilgamesh</B><B> (approx. 2000 B.C.), a king embarks on a quest to find an herb that can make him immortal. It's worth noting that it was assumed both that mortality was not inescapable in principle, and that there existed (at least mythological) means of overcoming it. That people really strove to live longer and richer lives can also be seen in the development of systems of magic and alchemy; lacking scientific means of producing an elixir of life, one resorted to magical means. This strategy was adopted, for example, by the various schools of esoteric Taoism in China, which sought physical immortality and control over or harmony with the forces of nature.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The Greeks were ambivalent about humans transgressing our natural confines. On the one hand, they were fascinated by the idea. We see it in the myth of Prometheus, who stole the fire from Zeus and gave it to the humans, thereby permanently improving the human condition. And in the myth of Daedalus, the gods are repeatedly challenged, quite successfully, by a clever engineer and artist, who uses non-magical means to extend human capabilities. On the other hand, there is also the concept of </B><B>hubris</B><B>: that some ambitions are off-limit and would backfire if pursued. In the end, Daedalus' enterprise ends in disaster (not, however, because it was punished by the gods but owing entirely to natural causes).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Greek philosophers made the first, stumbling attempts to create systems of thought that were based not purely on faith but on logical reasoning. Socrates and the sophists extended the application of critical thinking from metaphysics and cosmology to include the study of ethics and questions about human society and human psychology. Out of this inquiry arose cultural humanism, a very important current throughout the history of Western science, political theory, ethics, and law.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In the Renaissance, human thinking was awoken from medieval otherworldliness and the scholastic modes of reasoning that had predominated for a millennium, and the human being and the natural world again became legitimate objects of study. Renaissance humanism encouraged people to rely on their own observations and their own judgment rather than to defer in every matter to religious authorities. Renaissance humanism also created the ideal of the well-rounded personality, one that is highly developed scientifically, morally, culturally, and spiritually. A milestone is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's </B><B>Oration on the Dignity of Man</B><B> (1486), which states that man does not have a ready form but that it is man's task to form himself. And crucially, modern science began to take form then, through the works of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The Age of Enlightenment can be said to have started with the publication of Francis Bacon's </B><B>Novum Organum</B><B>, “the new tool” (1620), in which he proposes a scientific methodology based on empirical investigation rather than a priori reasoning. Bacon advocates the project of “effecting all things possible,” by which he meant the achievement of mastery over nature in order to improve the condition of human beings. The heritage from the Renaissance combines with the influences of Isaac Newton, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Marquis de Condorcet, and others to form the basis for rational humanism, which emphasizes science and critical reasoning - rather than revelation and religious authority - as ways of learning about the natural world and the destiny and nature of man and of providing a grounding for morality. Transhumanism traces its roots to this rational humanism.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In the 18</B><B>th</B><B> and 19</B><B>th</B><B> centuries we begin to see glimpses of the idea that even humans themselves can be developed through the appliance of science. Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire speculated about extending human life span through medical science. Especially after Darwin's theory of evolution, atheism or agnosticism came to be seen as increasingly attractive alternatives. However, the optimism of the late 19</B><B>th</B><B> century often degenerated into narrow-minded positivism and the belief that progress was automatic. When this view collided with reality, some people reacted by turning to irrationalism, concluding that since reason was not sufficient, it was worthless. This resulted in the anti-technological, anti-intellectual sentiments whose sequelae we can still witness today in some postmodernist writers, in the New Age movement, and among the neo-Luddite wing of the anti-globalization agitators.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>A significant stimulus in the formation of transhumanism was the essay </B><B>Daedalus: Science and the Future</B><B> (1923) by the British biochemist J. B. S. Haldane, in which he discusses how scientific and technological findings may come to affect society and improve the human condition. This essay set off a chain reaction of future-oriented discussions, including </B><B>The World, the Flesh and the Devil</B><B> by J. D. Bernal (1929), which speculates about space colonization and bionic implants as well as mental improvements through advanced social science and psychology; the works of Olaf Stapledon; and the essay “Icarus: the Future of Science” (1924) by Bertrand Russell, who took a more pessimistic view, arguing that without more kindliness in the world, technological power will mainly serve to increase men's ability to inflict harm on one another. Science fiction authors such as H. G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon also got many people thinking about the future evolution of the human race. One frequently cited work is Aldous Huxley's </B><B>Brave New World</B><B> (1932), a dystopia where psychological conditioning, promiscuous sexuality, biotechnology, and opiate drugs are used to keep the population placid and contented in a static, totalitarian society ruled by an elite consisting of ten “world controllers”. Huxley's novel warns of the dehumanizing potential of technology being used to arrest growth and to diminish the scope of human nature rather than enhance it.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The Second World War changed the direction of some of those currents that result in today's transhumanism. The eugenics movement, which had previously found advocates not only among racists on the extreme right but also among socialists and progressivist social democrats, was thoroughly discredited. The goal of creating a new and better world through a centrally imposed vision became taboo and passé; and the horrors of the Stalinist Soviet Union again underscored the dangers of such an approach. Mindful of these historical lessons, transhumanists are often deeply suspicious of collectively orchestrated change, arguing instead for the right of individuals to redesign themselves and their own descendants.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In the postwar era, optimistic futurists tended to direct their attention more toward technological progress, such as space travel, medicine, and computers. Science began to catch up with speculation. Transhumanist ideas during this period were discussed and analyzed chiefly in the literary genre of science fiction. Authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Stanislaw Lem, and later Bruce Sterling, Greg Egan, and Vernor Vinge have explored various aspects of transhumanism in their writings and contributed to its proliferation.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Robert Ettinger played an important role in giving transhumanism its modern form. The publication of his book </B><B>The Prospect of Immortality</B><B> in 1964 led to the creation of the cryonics movement. Ettinger argued that since medical technology seems to be constantly progressing, and since chemical activity comes to a complete halt at low temperatures, it should be possible to freeze a person today and preserve the body until such a time when technology is advanced enough to repair the freezing damage and reverse the original cause of deanimation. In a later work, </B><B>Man into Superman</B><B> (1972), he discussed a number of conceivable improvements to the human being, continuing the tradition started by Haldane and Bernal.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Another influential early transhumanist was F. M. Esfandiary, who later changed his name to FM-2030. One of the first professors of future studies, FM taught at the New School for Social Research in New York in the 1960s and formed a school of optimistic futurists known as the UpWingers. In his book </B><B>Are you a transhuman?</B><B> (1989), he described what he saw as the signs of the emergence of the transhuman person, in his terminology indicating an evolutionary link towards posthumanity. (A terminological aside: an early use of the word “transhuman” was in the 1972-book of Ettinger, who doesn't now remember where he first encountered the term. The word “transhumanism” was coined by Julian Huxley in </B><B>New Bottles for New Wine</B><B> (1957); the sense in which he used it, however, was not quite the contemporary one.)</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In the 1970s and 1980s, several organizations sprung up for life extension, cryonics, space colonization, science fiction, and futurism. They were often isolated from one another, and while they shared similar views and values, they did not yet amount to any unified coherent worldview. One prominent voice from a standpoint with strong transhumanist elements during this era came from Marvin Minsky, an eminent artificial intelligence researcher.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In 1986, Eric Drexler published </B><B>Engines of Creation</B><B>, the first book-length exposition of molecular manufacturing. (The possibility of nanotechnology had been anticipated by Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman in a now-famous after-dinner address in 1959 entitled “There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom”.) In this groundbreaking work, Drexler not only argued for the feasibility of assembler-based nanotechnology but also explored its consequences and began charting the strategic challenges posed by its development. Drexler's later writings supplied more technical analyses that confirmed his initial conclusions. To prepare the world for nanotechnology and work towards it safe implementation, he founded the Foresight Institute together with his then wife Christine Peterson in 1986.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Ed Regis's </B><B>Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition</B><B> (1990) took a humorous look at transhumanism's hubristic scientists and philosophers. Another couple of influential books were roboticist Hans Moravec's seminal </B><B>Mind Children</B><B> (1988) about the future development of machine intelligence, and more recently Ray Kurzweil's bestselling </B><B>Age of Spiritual Machines</B><B> (1999), which presented ideas similar to Moravec's. Frank Tipler's </B><B>Physics of Immortality</B><B> (1994), inspired by the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (a paleontologist and Jesuit theologian who saw an evolutionary telos in the development of an encompassing noosphere, a global consciousness) argued that advanced civilizations might come to have a shaping influence on the future evolution of the cosmos, although some were put off by Tipler's attempt to blend science with religion. Many science advocates, such as Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, and Douglas Hofstadter, have also helped pave the way for public understanding of transhumanist ideas.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In 1988, the first issue of the </B><B>Extropy Magazine</B><B> was published by Max More and Tom Morrow, and in 1992 they founded the Extropy Institute (the term “extropy” being coined as an informal opposite of “entropy”). The magazine and the institute served as catalysts, bringing together disparate groups of people with futuristic ideas. More wrote the first definition of transhumanism in its modern sense, and created his own distinctive brand of transhumanism, “extropianism”, which emphasized individualism, dynamic optimism, and the market mechanism in addition to technology. The transhumanist arts genre became more self-aware through the works of the artist Natasha Vita-More. During this time, an intense exploration of ideas also took place on various Internet mailing lists. Influential early contributors included Anders Sandberg (then a neuroscience doctoral student) and Robin Hanson (an economist and polymath) among many others.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The World Transhumanist Association was founded in 1998 by Nick Bostrom (who is its current Chair) and David Pearce to act as a coordinating international nonprofit organization for all transhumanist-related groups and interests, across the political spectrum. The WTA focuses on supporting transhumanism as a serious academic discipline and on promoting public awareness of transhumanist thinking. The WTA began publishing the </B><B>Journal of Evolution and Technology</B><B>, the first scholarly peer-reviewed journal for transhumanist studies in 1999 (which is also the year when the first version of this FAQ was published). In 2001, the WTA adopted its current constitution and is now governed by an executive board that is democratically elected by its full membership. James Hughes especially (the current WTA Secretary) among others helped lift the WTA to its current more mature stage, and a strong team of volunteers has been building up the organization to what it is today.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In the past couple of years, the transhumanist movement has been growing fast and furiously. Local groups are mushrooming in all parts of the world. Awareness of transhumanist ideas is spreading. Transhumanism is undergoing the transition from being the preoccupation of a fringe group of intellectual pioneers to becoming a mainstream approach to understanding the prospects for technological transformation of the human condition. That technological advances will help us overcome many of our current human limitations is no longer an insight confined to a few handfuls of techno-savvy visionaries. Yet understanding the consequences of these anticipated possibilities and the ethical choices we will face is a momentous challenge that humanity will be grappling with over the coming decades. The transhumanist tradition has produced a (still evolving) body of thinking to illuminate these complex issues that is unparalleled in its scope and depth of foresight.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>References:</B></div> <div> <B>Bacon, F. </B><B>Novum Organum</B><B>. (New York: Colonial Press, 1899 [1620]). </B><A HREF="http://www.constitution.org/bacon/nov_org.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.constitution.org/bacon/nov_or"><U><B>http://www.constitution.org/bacon/nov_org.htm</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Bernal, J. D. </B><B>The World, the Flesh & the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul</B><B>. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969 [1929]). </B><A HREF="http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Bernal/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Bernal/"><U><B>http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Bernal/</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Drexler, E. </B><B>The Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology</B><B>. (New York: Anchor Books, 1986). </B><A HREF="http://www.foresight.org/EOC/index.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.foresight.org/EOC/index.html"><U><B>http://www.foresight.org/EOC/index.html</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Ettinger, R. </B><B>The Prospect of Immortality</B><B>. (New York: Doubleday, 1964). </B><A HREF="http://www.cryonics.org/book1.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.cryonics.org/book1.html"><U><B>http://www.cryonics.org/book1.html</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Ettinger, R. </B><B>Man into Superman</B><B>. (New York: St. Martin's, 1972). </B><A HREF="http://www.cryonics.org/book2.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.cryonics.org/book2.html"><U><B>http://www.cryonics.org/book2.html</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Extropy Institute</B><B>. </B><A HREF="http://www.extropy.org/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.extropy.org/"><U><B>http://www.extropy.org</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Feynman, R. “There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom.” Presentation given on December 29</B><B>th</B><B>, 1959 at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society at the California Institute of Technology, published in</B><B> Engineering and Science</B><B>, Feb 1960. </B><A HREF="http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.ht"><U><B>http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>FM-2030. </B><B>Are You a Transhuman?</B><B> (New York: Warner Books, 1989).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Foresight Institute</B><B>. </B><A HREF="http://www.foresight.org/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.foresight.org/"><U><B>http://www.foresight.org</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Haldane, J. B. S. </B><B>Daedalus or Science and the Future</B><B>. (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1924 [1923]). </B><A HREF="http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Daedalus.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Daedalus"><U><B>http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Daedalus.html</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Huxley, A</B><B>. Brave New World</B><B>. (San Bernadino: The Borgo Press, 1989 [1932]).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Huxley, J. </B><B>New Bottles for New Wine</B><B>. (New York: Harper, 1957).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Journal of Evolution and Technology</B><B>. </B><A HREF="http://www.jetpress.org/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.jetpress.org/"><U><B>http://www.jetpress.org/</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Mirandola, Giovanni Pico. </B><B>Oration on the Dignity of Man</B><B>. (1486). </B><A HREF="http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Mirandola/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Mirandol"><U><B>http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Mirandola/</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Moravec, H. </B><B>Mind Children</B><B> (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1988).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Regis, E. </B><B>Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition</B><B> (New York: Perseus, 1990).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Russell, B. </B><B>Icarus or The Future of Science</B><B>. (New York: E. P Dutton & Company, 1924). </B><A HREF="http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Icarus.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Icarus.h"><U><B>http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Icarus.html</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Tipler, F. </B><B>The Physics of Immortality</B><B> (New York: Doubleday, 1994).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>World Transhumanist Association</B><B>. </B><A HREF="http://www.transhumanism.org/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.transhumanism.org/"><U><B>http://www.transhumanism.org</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="5_2______what_currents_are_there_within_transhumanism_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5.2      What currents are there within transhumanism? Is extropianism the same as transhumanism?</B></div> <div> <B>There is a rich variety of opinion within transhumanist thought. Many of the leading transhumanist thinkers hold complex and subtle views that are under constant revision and development and which often defy easy labeling. Some distinctive - although not always sharply defined - currents or flavors of transhumanism can nevertheless be discerned:</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Extropianism</B><B>. The name is derived from the term “extropy,” coined by T. O. Morrow in 1988, referring to “the extent of a system's intelligence, information, order, vitality, and capacity for improvement.”  Extropianism is defined by the Extropian Principles, a text authored by Max More (1998), who co-founded the Extropy Institute together with Morrow. Version 3.0 of this document lists seven principles that are important for extropians in the development of their thinking: Perpetual Progress, Self-Transformation, Practical Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Open Society, Self-Direction, and Rational Thinking. These are meant to codify general attitudes rather than specific dogmas. </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Democratic transhumanism</B><B>. This strand of transhumanism advocates both the right to use technology to transcend the limitations of the human body and the extension of democratic concerns beyond formal legal equality and liberty, into economic and cultural liberty and equality, in order to protect values such as equality, solidarity, and democratic participation in a transhuman context (Hughes 2002).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The Hedonistic Imperative</B><B>. Another transhumanist current is represented by advocates of “paradise-engineering” as outlined in David Pearce (2003). Pearce argues on ethical grounds for a biological program to eliminate all forms of cruelty, suffering, and malaise. In the short-run, our emotional lives might be enriched by designer mood-drugs (i.e. not street-drugs). In the long-term, however, Pearce suggests that it will be technically feasible to rewrite the vertebrate genome, redesign the global ecosystem, and use biotechnology to abolish suffering throughout the living world. Pearce believes “post-Darwinian superminds” will enjoy genetically pre-programmed well-being and be animated by “gradients of bliss.”</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Singularitarianism</B><B>. Singularitarian transhumanists focus on transhuman technologies that can potentially lead to the rise of smarter-than-human intelligence, such as brain-computer interfacing and Artificial Intelligence. Since our present-day intelligence is ultimately the source of our technology, singularitarians expect the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence to be a watershed moment in history, with an impact more comparable to the rise of Homo sapiens than to past breakthroughs in technology. Singularitarians stress the importance of ensuring that such intelligence be coupled with ethical sensibility (Yudkowsky 2003) [see also “What is the singularity?”].</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Theoretical transhumanism</B><B>. This is not so much a specific version of a transhumanism as a research direction: the study of the constraints, possibilities, and consequences of potential future trajectories of technological and human development, using theoretical tools from economics, game theory, evolution theory, probability theory, and “theoretical applied science” i.e. the study of physically possible systems designs that we cannot yet build. For some examples, see Bostrom (2002, 2003a) and Hanson (1994, 1998). Investigations of ethical issues related to the transhumanist project - the project of creating a world where as many people as possible have the option of becoming posthuman - can also be included under this heading (see e.g. Bostrom 2003b).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Salon transhumanism</B><B>. Transhumanism as a network of people who share certain interests and like to spend long hours conversing about transhumanist matters on email lists or face-to-face.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Transhumanism in arts and culture</B><B>. Transhumanism as a source of inspiration in artistic creation and cultural activities, including efforts to communicate transhumanist ideas and values to a wider audience [see also “What kind of transhumanist art is there?”].</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>References:</B></div> <div> <B>Bostrom, N. “Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios.” </B></div> <div> <B>Journal of Evolution and Technology</B><B>. (2002), Vol. 9. </B><A HREF="http://jetpress.org/volume9/risks.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://jetpress.org/volume9/risks.html"><U><B>http://jetpress.org/volume9/risks.html</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Bostrom, N. “Are You Living In A Computer Simulation?” </B><B>Philosophical </B></div> <div> <B>Quarterly</B><B>. (2003a), Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255. </B><A HREF="http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.simulation-argument.com/simul"><U><B>http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html</B></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Bostrom, N. “Human Genetic Enhancements: A Transhumanist Perspective.” </B><B>The </B></div> <div> <B>Journal of Value Inquiry</B><B>. (2003b), forthcoming.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Hanson, R. “What if Uploads Come First: The Crack of a Future Dawn.” </B></div> <div> <B>Extropy</B><B>, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1994). </B><A HREF="http://hanson.gmu.edu/uploads.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://hanson.gmu.edu/uploads.html"><U><B>http://hanson.gmu.edu/uploads.html</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Hanson, R. “Burning the Cosmic Commons: Evolutionary Strategies for Interstellar Colonization.” (1998). </B><A HREF="http://hanson.gmu.edu/filluniv.pdf" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://hanson.gmu.edu/filluniv.pdf"><U><B>http://hanson.gmu.edu/filluniv.pdf</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Hughes, J. “Democratic Transhumanism.” </B><B>Transhumanity</B><B>, April 28, 2002. </B><A HREF="http://www.transhumanism.com/articles_more.php?id=P52_0_4_0_C" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.transhumanism.com/articles_mo"><U><B>http://www.transhumanism.com/articles_more.php?id=P52_0_4_0_C</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Pearce, D. </B><B>The Hedonistic Imperative</B><B> (version of 2003). </B><A HREF="http://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedonist.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedonist."><U><B>http://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedonist.htm</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>More, M. “The Extropian Principles, v. 3.0.” (1998). </B><A HREF="http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm"><U><B>http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Yudkowsky, E. “What is the Singularity.” (2003). </B><A HREF="http://www.singinst.org/what-singularity.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.singinst.org/what-singularity"><U><B>http://www.singinst.org/what-singularity.html</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="5_3______how_does_transhumanism_relate_to_religion_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5.3      How does transhumanism relate to religion?</B></div> <div> <B>Transhumanism is a philosophical and cultural movement concerned with promoting responsible ways of using technology to enhance human capacities and to increase the scope of human flourishing.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>While not a religion, transhumanism might serve a few of the same functions that people have traditionally sought in religion. It offers a sense of direction and purpose and suggests a vision that humans can achieve something greater than our present condition. Unlike most religious believers, however, transhumanists seek to make their dreams come true in </B><B>this</B><B> world, by relying not on supernatural powers or divine intervention but on rational thinking and empiricism, through continued scientific, technological, economic, and human development. Some of the prospects that used to be the exclusive thunder of the religious institutions, such as very long lifespan, unfading bliss, and godlike intelligence, are being discussed by transhumanists as hypothetical future engineering achievements.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Transhumanism is a naturalistic outlook. At the moment, there is no hard evidence for supernatural forces or irreducible spiritual phenomena, and transhumanists prefer to derive their understanding of the world from rational modes of inquiry, especially the scientific method. Although science forms the basis for much of the transhumanist worldview, transhumanists recognize that science has its own fallibilities and imperfections, and that critical ethical thinking is essential for guiding our conduct and for selecting worthwhile aims to work towards.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Religious fanaticism, superstition, and intolerance are not acceptable among transhumanists. In many cases, these weaknesses can be overcome through a scientific and humanistic education, training in critical thinking, and interaction with people from different cultures. Certain other forms of religiosity, however, may well be compatible with transhumanism.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>It should be emphasized that transhumanism is not a fixed set of dogmas. It is an evolving worldview, or rather, a family of evolving worldviews - for transhumanists disagree with each other on many issues. The transhumanist philosophy, still in its formative stages, is meant to keep developing in the light of new experiences and new challenges. Transhumanists want to find out where they are wrong and to change their views accordingly.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="5_4______won_t_things_like_uploading"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5.4      Won't things like uploading, cryonics, and AI fail because they can't preserve or create the soul?</B></div> <div> <B>If we answer this question from a religious standpoint, there is no clear ground for ruling out these technologies as incompatible with teachings about the soul. There is no scriptural basis in the Bible for assuming that God can't get to our soul if we freeze our physical body, nor is there a single word in the Christian or Jewish scriptures, or the Quran, the Dhammapada, or the Tao Teh Ching, that prohibits cryonics. Or, for someone who believes in reincarnation, there are no traditional beliefs that say reincarnation is prevented when someone freezes to death or whose body is frozen after clinical death. If there is a soul and it enters the body at conception, then cryonics may well work - after all, human embryos have been frozen, stored for extended periods, and then implanted in their mothers, resulting in healthy children (who presumably have souls). Uploading and machine intelligence may reveal new things to us about the soul works. It is interesting to note that the Dalai Lama, when asked, did not rule out the possibility of reincarnating into computers (Hayward et al. 1992), pp. 152f.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>While the concept of a soul is not used much in a naturalistic philosophy such as transhumanism, many transhumanists do take an interest in the related problems concerning personal identity (Parfit 1984) and consciousness (Churchland 1988). These problems are being intensely studied by contemporary analytic philosophers, and although some progress has been made, e.g. in Derek Parfit's work on personal identity, they have still not been resolved to general satisfaction.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>References:</B></div> <div> <B>Churchland, P. </B><B>Matter and Consciousness</B><B>. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Hayward, J. et at. </B><B>Gentle Bridges:</B><B> </B><B>Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of the Mind</B><B>. (Shambala Publications, 1992).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Parfit, D. </B><B>Reasons and Persons</B><B>. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="5_5______what_kind_of_transhumanist_art"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>5.5      What kind of transhumanist art is there?</B></div> <div> <B>Many kinds, but what examples one would give depends on how one defines “transhumanist art”. If one defines it simply as art that is concerned with the human aspiration to overcome current limits, then a large portion of all art through the ages would count as transhumanist - from ancient myths of Promethean hubris, to religious transcendental iconography, architecture, and rituals, J. S. Bach's fugues, Goethe's Faust, through to the postmodern artists, many of whom conceived of their work as an attempt to explode conceptual barriers in order to widen the reach of human creativity.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>If we narrow the definition by adding the requirement that a transhumanist telos be coupled to a notion of the centrality of technological means, we get a different set of paradigmatic examples. The Frankenstein myth (based originally on the novel by Mary Shelly published in 1831, and elaborated in countless forms since then) is one classic, and in ge</B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#336666" FACE="Times New Roman CE" ><B>neral science fiction has been the genre most intensely preoccupied with transhumanist themes, reaching back to Jules Verne and Karel Èapek, through Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Stanislav Lem, Arthur C. Clark, on to Vernor Vinge, Bruce Sterling, James</B></FONT><B> Halperin, Greg Egan, and many others. Many of these author's stories have been adapted for the screen. (The Star Trek series features cool new technology but the same old humans, so it is not a very paradigmatic exemplar of transhumanist art.)</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Another way of defining the concept would be to say that transhumanist art is art produced by declared transhumanists. On this definition, examples have to be sought in recent times since the term “transhumanism” in its contemporary sense is quite new. Natasha Vita-More is one of the earliest and most prominent transhumanist artists in this sense. For instance, her recent visual and conceptual work, Primo 3M+, presents a kind of sleek future shopping catalog entry for an entire body design with features such as memory enhancements, sonar sensors, solar protected skin with hue-texture changeability, gender reconfigurability, environmentally-friendly waste disposal, and which comes complete with warranty and upgradability. Vita-More is also the author of several transhumanist arts manifestos, in which transhumanist art becomes self-conscious for the first time. Other contemporary transhumanist artists include Lilia Morales y Mori, Anders Sandberg, Juan Meridalva (visual art); Elaine Walker, E. Shaun Russell, Emlyn O'Regan, Gustavo Muccillo Alves, and the band Cosmodelia (electronic music); Susan Rogers (puppet theatre); Jane Holt (performance art); and many others.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> </B></div> <div> <B>References:</B></div> <div> <B>Vita-More, N. </B><B>Primo 3M+</B><B> (2002). </B><A HREF="http://www.natasha.cc/primo.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.natasha.cc/primo.htm"><U><B>http://www.natasha.cc/primo.htm</B></U></A><B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Vita-More, N. “Transhumanist Arts Statement” (version of 2002). </B><A HREF="http://www.extropic-art.com/transart.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.extropic-art.com/transart.htm"><U><B>http://www.extropic-art.com/transart.htm</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="6________practicalities"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>6.       PRACTICALITIES</B></div> <div>  </div> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="6_1______what_are_the_reasons_to_expect"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>6.1      What are the reasons to expect all these changes?</B></div> <div> <B>Take a look around. Compare what you see with what you would have seen only fifty years ago. It is not an especially bold conjecture that the next 50 years will see at least as much change and that the state of technology in the mid-21</B><B>st</B><B> century will be quite wondrous by present standards. The conservative projection, which assumes only that progress continues in the same gradual way it has since the 17</B><B>th</B><B> century, would imply that we should expect to see dramatic developments over the coming decades.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>This expectation is reinforced when one considers that many crucial areas seem poised for critical breakthroughs. The World-Wide Web is beginning to link the world's people, adding a new global layer to human society where information is supreme. The Human Genome Project has been completed, and the study of the functional roles of our genes (functional genomics) is proceeding rapidly. Techniques for using this genetic information to modify adult organisms or the germ-line are being developed. The performance of computers doubles every 18 months and will approach the computational power of a human brain in the foreseeable future. Pharmaceutical companies are refining drugs that will enable us to regulate mood and aspects of personality with few side effects. Many transhumanist aims can be pursued with present technologies. Can there be much doubt that, barring a civilization-destroying cataclysm, technological progress will give us much more radical options in the future? [See also “Won't these developments take thousands or millions of years?”]</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Molecular manufacturing has the potential to transform the human condition. Is it a feasible technology? Eric Drexler and others have showed in detail how machine-phase nanotechnology is consistent with physical laws and have outlined several routes by which it could be developed [see “What is molecular nanotechnology?”]. Molecular manufacturing might seem incredible, maybe because the eventual consequences seem too overwhelming, but nanotechnology experts point out that there currently exists no published technical critique of Drexler's arguments. More than ten years after the publication of </B><B>Nanosystems</B><B>, nobody has yet been able to point to any significant error in the calculations. Meanwhile, investment in the development of nanotechnology, already billions of dollars annually worldwide, is growing every year, and at least the less visionary aspects of nanotechnology have already become mainstream.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>There are many independent methods and technologies that can enable humans to become posthuman. There is uncertainty about which technologies will be perfected first, and we have a choice about which methods to use. But provided civilization continues to prosper, it seems almost inevitable that humans will sooner or later have the option of becoming posthuman persons. And, unless forcibly prevented, many will choose to explore that option.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>References:</B></div> <div> <B>Drexler, E. </B><B>Nanosystems:</B><B> </B><B>Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation.</B><B> (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1992).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="6_2______won_t_these_developments_take"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>6.2      Won't these developments take thousands or millions of years?</B></div> <div> <B>It is often very hard to predict how long a certain technological development will take. The moon landing happened sooner than most people had expected, but fusion energy still eludes us after half a century of anticipation. The difficulty in forecasting the timing lies partly in the possibility of unexpected technical obstacles and partly in the fact that the rate of progress depends on levels of funding, which in turn depends on hard-to-predict economic and political factors. Therefore, while one can in many cases give good grounds for thinking that a technology will eventually be developed, one can usually only make informed guesses about how long it will take.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The vast majority of transhumanists think that superintelligence and nanotechnology will both be developed in less than a hundred years, and many predict that it will happen well within the first third of this century. (Some of the reasons for holding these opinions are outlined in the sections about these two technologies.) Once there is both nanotechnology and superintelligence, a very wide range of special applications will follow swiftly.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>It would be possible to give a long list of examples where people in the past have solemnly declared that something was technologically absolutely impossible,</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>“The secrets of flight will not be mastered within our lifetime - not within a thousand years.” </B><B>(Wilbur Wright, 1901),</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>or socially irrelevant,</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>“There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.”</B><B> (Ken Olsen: President, Chairman and Founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977)</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>- only to see it happen few years later. However, one could give an equally long list of cases of predicted breakthroughs that failed to occur. The question cannot be settled by enumerating historical parallels.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>A better strategy is to look directly at what a careful analysis of the underlying physical constraints and engineering constraints might reveal. In the case of the most crucial future technologies - superintelligence and molecular manufacturing - such analyses have been done. Many experts believe that these will likely be achieved within the first several decades of the 21</B><B>st</B><B> century. Other experts think it will take much longer. There seems to be more disagreement about the feasibility and time-frame of superintelligence than of nanotechnology.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Another way of forming a view of where we are headed is by looking at trends. At least since the late 19</B><B>th</B><B> century, science and technology, as measured by a wide range of indicators, have doubled about every 15 years (Price 1986). Extrapolating this exponential rate of progress, one is led to expect to see dramatic changes in the relatively near future. It would require an abrupt reversal of current trends, an unexpected deceleration, in order for the changes that many transhumanists foresee not to happen within the 21</B><B>st</B><B> century.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>References:</B></div> <div> <B>The Foresight Institute</B><B>. “Erroneous Predictions and Negative Comments Concerning Scientific and Technological Developments.” (2002). </B><A HREF="http://www.foresight.org/News/negativeComments.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.foresight.org/News/negativeCo"><U><B>http://www.foresight.org/News/negativeComments.html</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Price, D. J. </B><B>Little Science, Big Science ...and Beyond</B><B>. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="6_3______what_if_it_doesn_t_work_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>6.3      What if it doesn't work?</B></div> <div> <B>Success in the transhumanist endeavor is not an all-or-nothing matter. There is no “it” that everything hinges on. Instead, there are many incremental processes at play, which may work better or worse, faster or more slowly. Even if we can't cure all diseases, we will cure many. Even if we don't get immortality, we can have healthier lives. Even if we can't freeze whole bodies and revive them, we can learn how to store organs for transplantation. Even if we don't solve world hunger, we can feed a lot of people. With many potentially transforming technologies already available and others in the pipeline, it is clear that there will be a large scope for human augmentation. The more powerful transhuman technologies, such as machine-phase nanotechnology and superintelligence, can be reached through several independent paths. Should we find one path to be blocked, we can try another one. The multiplicity of routes adds to the probability that our journey will not come to a premature halt.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>There </B><B>are</B><B> ways to fail completely, namely if we succumb to an existential disaster [see “Aren't these future technologies very risky? Could they even cause our extinction?”]. Efforts to reduce existential risks are therefore a top priority.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <div>  </div> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="6_4______how_can_i_use_transhumanism_in"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>6.4      How can I use transhumanism in my own life?</B></div> <div> <B>While transhumanism has been known to cross over with academic agendas, ethical philosophies, political causes, and artistic movements, transhumanism is not a lifestyle, a religion, or a self-help guide. Transhumanism can't tell you what kind of music to listen to, which hobbies to pursue, whom to marry or how to live your life, any more than, say, being a member of Amnesty International or studying molecular biology could tell you these things.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Depending on your situation and your needs, you might or might not find some of the currently available human modification or enhancement options useful. Some of these are commonplace - exercise, healthy diet, relaxation techniques, time management, study skills, information technology, coffee or tea (as stimulants), education, and nutritional supplements (such as vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, or hormones). Others you might not have thought of, such as getting a cryonic suspension contract [see “What is cryonics? Isn't the probability of success too small?”], or chewing nicotine gum for its nootropic effects. Still others - for instance pharmacological mood drugs or sex reassignment surgery - are suitable only for people who have special difficulties or needs.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>If you want to learn more about transhumanist topics, meet like-minded individuals, and participate in some way the transhumanist effort, see “How can I get involved and contribute?”</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="6_5______how_could_i_become_a_posthuman_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>6.5      How could I become a posthuman?</B></div> <div> <B>At present, there is no manner by which any human can become a posthuman. This is the primary reason for the strong interest in life extension and cryonics among transhumanists. Those of us who live long enough to witness currently foreseeable technologies come to fruition may get the chance to become posthuman. Although there are no guarantees of success, there are some things that can be done on an individual level that will improve the odds a bit:</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>1.</B><B>     </B><B>Live healthily and avoid unnecessary risks (such as smoking);</B></div> <div> <B>2.</B><B>     </B><B>Sign up for cryonics;</B></div> <div> <B>3.</B><B>     </B><B>Keep abreast of current research and save some money so that you can afford future life-extension treatments when they become available;</B></div> <div> <B>4.</B><B>     </B><B>Support the development of transhuman technologies through donations, advocacy, investment, or choosing a career in the field; work to make access more universal and to make the world safer from existential risks [see “Aren't these future technologies very risky? Could they even cause our extinction?”];</B></div> <div> <B>5.</B><B>     </B><B>Join others to help promote transhumanism.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Meanwhile, we can enjoy and make the most of the opportunities that exist today for living worthwhile and meaningful lives. If we compare our current lot with that of our historical ancestors, most (at least those of us who don't live in the least developed countries) will find that the material circumstances for human flourishing are the best they have ever been. In addition, we possess an unprecedented accumulation of cultural and intellectual treasures whereby we can enrich our experiences and broaden our horizons.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="6_6______won_t_it_be_boring_to_live"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>6.6      Won't it be boring to live forever in a perfect world?</B></div> <div> <B>Why not try it and see?</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>“Perfection” is a vague and treacherous word. There is considerable disagreement among transhumanists about what kind of perfection is attainable and desirable, either in theory or in practice. It is probably wiser to speak of improving the world, rather than making it “perfect.” Would it be boring to live for an indefinitely long time in a greatly improved world? The world could surely be improved over the way it is now, including becoming less boring. If you got rid of the pain and stress associated with, say, filling out annual tax returns, people would probably not sit around afterward saying: “Life feels meaningless now that I no longer have income tax forms to fill out.”</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Admittedly, material improvements to the environment may not, in themselves, be sufficient to bring about lasting happiness. If your accustomed fare is bread and water, then a box of cookies can be a feast. But if every night you eat out at fancy restaurants, such fine fare will soon seem ordinary and normal; and any lesser feast, such as a box of cookies, would be insulting by comparison. Some cognitive scientists speculate that we each have a “set point” of happiness, to which we soon return regardless of changes in the environment. There may be considerable truth to the folk wisdom that an expensive new car does not make you happier (or rather, it makes you happier, but only temporarily). In some ways, human minds and brains are just not designed to be happy. Fortunately, there are several potential viewpoints from which to go about addressing this challenge.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Apes engage in activities that we, as humans, would find repetitive and dull. In the course of becoming smarter, we have become bored by things that would have interested our ancestors. But at the same time we have opened up a vast new space of possibilities for having fun - and the new space is much larger than the previous one. Humans are not simply apes who can obtain more bananas using our intelligence as a tool. Our intelligence enables us to desire new things, such as art, science, and mathematics. If at any point in your indefinitely long life you become bored with the greatly improved world, it may only indicate that the time has come to bump up your intelligence another increment.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>If the human brain has a “set point” of happiness to which it returns, maybe this is a design flaw and should be fixed - one of those things that we will end up defining as human, but not humane. It would probably be unwise to eliminate boredom entirely, since boredom can serve to prevent us from wasting too much time on monotonous and meaningless activities. But if we're doing new things, learning, growing more intelligent, and we still aren't happy, for no better reason than that our cognitive architecture is badly designed, then perhaps it is time to redesign it. Present clinical mood-drugs are crude, but nonetheless they can sometimes restore interest and enthusiasm for life - sometimes tiredness and despair has no interesting reason behind it and is simply an imbalance of brain chemistry. Only by compartmentalizing our thinking to a high degree can we imagine a world where there is mature molecular nanotechnology and superhuman artificial intelligence, but the means are still lacking to control the brain circuitry of boredom. Fundamentally, there is no reason why pleasure, excitement, profound well-being and simple joy at being alive could not become the natural, default state of mind for all who desire it.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Ed Regis (1990, p. 97) suggests the following points also be considered:</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>1. Ordinary life is sometimes boring. So what?</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>2. Eternal life will be as boring or as exciting as you make it.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>3. Is being dead more exciting?</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>4. If eternal life becomes boring, you will have the option of ending it at any time.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Transhumanism is not about a fancier car, more money, or clever gadgetry, even though this is what the media presents to us as “science” and “advanced technology”; transhumanism is about genuine changes to the human condition, including increased intelligence and minds better suited to the achievement of happiness.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>References: </B></div> <div> <B>Pearce, D. </B><B>The Hedonistic Imperative</B><B>. (2003) http://www.hedweb.com</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Regis, E. </B><B>Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition.</B><B> (Penguin Books: New York, 1990).</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="6_7______how_can_i_get_involved_and"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>6.7      How can I get involved and contribute?</B></div> <div> <B>You can join the World Transhumanist Association. The WTA is a nonprofit, democratic membership organization that works to promote discussion of possibilities for the radical improvement of human capacities using technology, as well as of the ethical issues and risks involved in technological developments. It was founded in 1998 as an umbrella organization to publicize transhumanist ideas and to seek academic acceptance of transhumanism as a philosophical and cultural movement. The WTA organizes conferences, publishes an academic journal and a webzine, issues press statements, and coordinates student campus chapters and local transhumanist groups around the world. To find out about current projects and upcoming events, and to become a member, please visit the WTA website.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The WTA has been growing since its inception and especially rapidly in the last couple of years, but the task before us is both momentous and mountainous. Your help is needed. There are myriad ways to contribute - organizing or participating in a local discussion group, writing articles or letters to the editor, making a financial contribution, spreading the word to friends and acquaintances, volunteering your skills to the WTA, translating key documents into other languages, linking to the WTA from your website, attending conferences and sharing your ideas, directing your research or creative activity towards transhumanist themes, to name but a few.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>If you want to study transhumanist ideas in more detail, you can find some syllabi and reading lists on the WTA website to get you started. If you want to exchange ideas with others, or just listen in to ongoing conversations, you may want to join one of the mailing lists and newsgroups maintained by the WTA.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The coming technological transitions may be the most important challenge that humanity will ever face. The entire future of intelligent life on Earth may depend on how we handle it. If we do the right things, a wonderful posthuman future with limitless opportunities for growth and flourishing may lie ahead. If we handle it badly, intelligent life might go extinct. Don't you want to take part and attempt to make a difference for the better?</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> </B></div> <div> <B>References:</B></div> <div> <B>World Transhumanist Association</B><B>. </B><A HREF="http://www.transhumanism.org/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.transhumanism.org/"><U><B>http://www.transhumanism.org</B></U></A><B>. (From this </B></div> <div> <B>site, links to local groups and affiliated organizations can also be found.)</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div>  </div> <div> <B> <A NAME="7_______acknowledgements_and_document"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>7       ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DOCUMENT HISTORY</B></div> <div>  </div> <bR> <div> <B>The Transhumanist FAQ was conceived as an attempt to develop a broadly based consensus articulation of the basics of responsible transhumanism. The aim was a text that could serve both as a guide to those new to the field and as a reference work for more seasoned participants.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Close to a hundred people have contributed in some way in the making of this document. The current version is a thoroughly revision of the version of 1999. Considerable new material has been added and many old sections have been substantially reworked. In preparing version 2.0, the following people have been especially helpful:</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Eliezer Yudkowsky, who provided editorial assistance with the entire document and many comments on particular issues of substance; Dale Carrico who proofread the first half of the text and eliminated a whole army of typos and infelicities; and Michael LaTorra who did the same for the second half; and “Reason” who then went over the whole document again, as did Frank Forman, and Sarah Banks Forman. Useful comments of either substance or form have also been contributed by (in alphabetical order): Michael Anissimov, Samantha Atkins, Milan Cirkovic, José Luis Cordeiro, George Dvorsky, James Hughes, G.E. Jordan, Vasso Kambourelli, Michael LaTorra, Eugen Leitl, Juan Meridalva, Harvey Newstrom, Emlyn O'Reagan, Christine Peterson, Giulio Prisco, Reason, Rafal Smigrodzki, Simon Smith, Mike Treder, and Mark Walker. Many others have over the years offered questions or reflections that have in some way helped shape this document, and even though it is not possible to name you all, your contributions are warmly appreciated. All remaining errors are my own fault.</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Since this new version builds on its predecessor, the contributors to the latter are also indirect contributors to the present document. The people who assisted with the first version included especially Anders Sandberg (several of the original sections were based heavily on his material and the section on transhumanism's historical precedents still very distinctly bears his mark), Kathryn Aegis, and Natasha Vita-More (who also both provided substantial chunks of text). The presentation in the cryonics section was, and still is, directly inspired by an article by Ralph Merkle. Several people contributed to the definition of transhumanism, in particular Kathryn Aegis and Max More. Greg Burch, David Pearce, Kathryn Aegis, and Anders Sandberg kindly offered extensive editorial comments. Ideas, criticisms, questions, phrases, and sentences to the original version were contributed by (in alphabetical order): Kathryn Aegis, Alex (intech@intsar.com), Brent Allsop, Brian Atkins, Scott Badger, Doug Bailey, Harmony Baldwin, Damien Broderick, Greg Burch, David Cary, John K Clark, Dan Clemmensen, Damon Davis, Jeff Dee, Jean-Michel Delhotel, Dylan Evans, EvMick@aol.com, Daniel Fabulich, Frank Forman, Robin Hanson, Andrew Hennessey, Tony Hollick, Joe Jenkins, William John, Michelle Jones, Arjen Kamphius, Henri Kluytmans, Eugene Leitl, Michael Lorrey, mark@unicorn.com, Peter C. McCluskey, Erik Moeller, J. R. Molloy, Max More, Bryan Moss, Harvey Newstrom, Michael Nielsen, John S. Novak III, Dalibor van den Otter, David Pearce, pilgrim@cyberdude.com, Thom Quinn, Anders Sandberg, Wesley R. Schwein, Shakehip@aol.com, Allen Smith, Geoff Smith, Randy Smith, Dennis Stevens, Derek Strong, Remi Sussan, Natasha Vita-More, Michael Wiik, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and zebo@pro-ns.net</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I would like to thank you all for helping creating this FAQ and for making transhumanism possible!</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Nick Bostrom</B></div> <div> <B>Oxford, October 2003</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>ON the bank at the end</B></div> <div> <B>Of what was there before us</B></div> <div> <B>Gazing over to the other side</B></div> <div> <B>On what we can become</B></div> <div> <B>Veiled in the mist of naïve speculation</B></div> <div> <B>We are busy here preparing</B></div> <div> <B>Rafts to carry us across</B></div> <div> <B>Before the light goes out leaving us</B></div> <div> <B>In the eternal night of could-have-beens</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>