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If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution!
(incorrectly but fittingly ascribed to Emma Goldman, feminist, activist, trouble-maker)
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Posted by James on 05/18 at 01:39 PM
Athena hits the nail on the head with her perspective on why many tech-savvy people are turned off by Transhumanism. Even Ray Kurzweil talks about the need for life-enhancement to keep up with life-extension so that we don't get bored out of our minds. If we can get to the point where a virtual environment can provide us with stimulus equaling or exceeding the input from our real-world senses, then we'll surely be able to "backup" our minds, at which point our real-world bodies are no longer death traps. Either way (virtual or real) there's no reason to deny our sensual pleasures.
Posted by Anonymous on 05/19 at 04:51 AM
WOW! Whether or not you agree with Athena Andreadis, her view of transhumanism is probably held by many people even if they can't express themselves as incisively and eloquently as she does. Kudos to the folks at IEET for having the openess to public self-criticism for publishing this piece. If this is a consequence of embracing a technoprogressive world view, I can only say one thing: MORE PLEASE! 
Posted by Transalchemy on 05/19 at 03:37 PM
In the end what transhumanism seeks to create is not a human upgrade, in fact the final outcome a posthuman may end up being alien to us in every way.
Yet if this is the will of the universe can we not send our human seed elsewhere to start over while we play the singularity end game here?
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 05/20 at 02:19 PM
Athena, I think you are kind of assuming your conclusions: you start assuming that transhumanism is grey, and conclude that it is grey. I think it is not grey, but an explosion of beautiful colors.
I am one of those who see the body as a meat cage and, if the option were already available, I would cheerfully choose to upload to silicon or cyberspace. But then I would want MORE color, sound, scent and sex, not less.
Why can't a "disembodied mind playing World of Warcraft in a VR datastream" feel much MORE empathy, friendship, and love (or hate) for others that we do today? Why can't they enjoy art, love flowers and be compassionate and supportive of other sentient beings? Why can't they laugh at a good joke or cry at a sad story? Why can't they enjoy a virtual beer with good friends in a simulated pub?
These are indeed assumptions, in my opinion questionable. I don't see any reason why a disembodied mind cannot _in principle_ have a inner and social life much richer than ours. Of course everything depends on the actual implementation of these yet to be developed options, but there is no reason to assume the worst. Let experiment decide: someday we will be able to _ask_ disembodied minds how they actually feel.
Posted by Athena Andreadis on 05/20 at 06:53 PM
Transalchemy, I agree. A posthuman intelligence will be very different from us, regardless of the details of its creation. And we will have to expand beyond earth (or try to, anyway) for reasons other than potential hostile sentients: we're rapidly running out of resources.
Giulio, disembodied fun in VR will be an extended hallucination regardless of its quality, unlike dreaming which affects reality by influencing synaptic configuration.
If we ever create novel minds in silicon, they won't be disembodied either. Their chips (or equivalent) will be indispensable parts of themselves, even if their intelligence is distributed over networks. Or are we in "pure energy" creature territory?
Posted by Steve Witham on 06/18 at 10:18 PM
A couple more nice relevant Nietzsche quotes:
"I do not go your way, you despisers of the body! You are no bridges to the Overman!" (from Zarathustra)
"One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star."
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 06/19 at 01:06 PM
Athena: " disembodied fun in VR will be an extended hallucination regardless of its quality, unlike dreaming which affects reality by influencing synaptic configuration."
Disembodied fun in VR will certainly affect "reality" by driving electrons, nanorods, qubits, or other components of whatever material substrate a person is running on. I don't see a fundamental difference.
Posted by Athena Andreadis on 06/19 at 02:29 PM
If you exist entirely in VR, all you'll affect (maybe) is the running speed of the computer framework or network you're in. Whoever runs the computer can switch you off.
Posted by TransAlchemy on 06/19 at 11:05 PM
YOur existence is subject to the administrator, it can be bliss or it can be hell . In either case You would have less control of your reality than you do now.
Posted by Sky Marsen on 06/25 at 08:06 PM
As Natasha Vita-More points out in her response, H+ ideas are certainly compatible with an aspiration to increase bodily pleasures and aesthetic pursuits. However, the point that I think Athena is making is that H+ ideas are most often expressed in ways that negate the body and its pleasures. I think this is a valid point.
So, even though the ideas themselves are not inconsistent with a physicalist perspective, this perspective is largely left unexplored by a great number of H+ writings. The way this comes across is as a lack of playful, sexy or colorful representations of human experience.
The problem could be that much H+ writing takes itself too seriously for its own good, and over-relies on a rationalist and argumentative approach that closes off meanings that are not based on objective evidence or reasoned arguments, such as feelings, sensations, tastes, whims, moods, etc.
Many H+ describe the qualities of pleasure but this is not the same as creating a pleasurable experience in themselves. This is the difference between a technical manual describing the origins, steps, etc of a dance, and the experience itself of actually dancing the dance.
Having said this, all we need is a wider variety of expression in H+ circles, without changing the foundations of H+ philosophy. H+ is still a growing movement...
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