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Interpretive Dance of the Transhumanist Future
COMMENTS
Posted by Athena Andreadis on 06/11 at 09:17 AM
Natasha, between recovering from an ear operation that had unexpected complications and immovable grant deadlines, I won't be able to respond to your article at length.
I must, however, correct a serious misrepresentation contained in this statement: "Where we obviously differ is Andreadis' belief that the carbon body is essential to be empathic and loving." You conflated two totally separate issues in that sentence.
I have repeatedly said in my writings that we may be able to create other minds, and that these need not be carbon-based. I have also said that if any artificial intelligence becomes sufficiently complex, it will start feeling emotions as soon as it attains consciousness. What I did say in the Revolution article (and elsewhere) is that we humans, as we have evolved, will be unable to thrive -- or even function well -- if we attempt to move to a silicon-based chassis.
On a more general note, although transhumanism has many shadings and flavors, the rupturist/millennarian strain is strong in it. If more of its adherents celebrate the body, that's a welcome corrective to keep transhumanism humane.
Posted by Natasha Vita-More on 06/11 at 12:25 PM
The sentence referred to the general thrust of your blog article and particular statements, not other writings that I hope to read at another time. I'm glad that you clarified this point.
I agree that the human will find enormous difficulty in non-biological bodies. This is why the transhumanist theorized semi and non-biological forms are for transhuman and posthuman beings, not the human. We humans have a difficult enough time just trying to ward of viruses, degeneration, cell apoptosis, and organism death.
I hope you are feeling better soon.
Posted by Athena Andreadis on 06/11 at 12:55 PM
The sentence attributes to me something that I did not say or imply in any way.
Are you suggesting that transhuman forms will not include (self-)evolved human descendants? If so, we'd be aiding in our own extinction. This would put transhumanism in the same league as the Heaven's Gates acolytes.
Posted by Mike Treder on 06/11 at 02:20 PM
I love being in my body. I luxuriate in the exercise of my senses. I delight in being human.
I find it a loathsome and cruel trick, however, that nature takes such an exquisitely wonderful creation as the human brain and imprisons it inside the weak, inefficient, fragile, and short-lived structure that is the human body.
I do not want my enjoyment of being alive cut off any time soon, so give me physical life-extension (unlimited healthspan), give me robot/brain transfer, or give me robust VR upload -- but also give me, in whatever form effective immortality might be offered, the pleasure of sensory experience and sensual satisfaction.
Posted by Natasha Vita-More on 06/11 at 02:45 PM
Of course the transhuman evolves from the human.
Posted by Leigh Christian on 06/11 at 03:21 PM
The notion of Heaven's Gates acolytes being in the same league as transhumanism seems a bizarre statement to me. HGAs were dealing with myth of salvation as differentiated from THs dealing with science. HGAs wanting to end their bio-lives leads me to question if they were dancing as much as they should have been.
Posted by Dave Sill on 06/11 at 04:20 PM
I enjoy as many of the pleasures of my body as I can, as often as I can. I'd like to keep enjoying them indefinitely, but I don't think my body will last that long. I don't want immortality as a brain-in-a-jar, a cyborg, or a pure energy entity if I won't have the freedom and sensory richness that I have now.
Posted by Stefano Vaj on 06/11 at 06:29 PM
"Are you suggesting that transhuman forms will not include (self-)evolved human descendants? If so, we'd be aiding in our own extinction."
Extinction? Would you therefore believe that the members of the Homo habilis species, by not killing in the cradle their children presenting tentative sapiens traits, have denied themselves the "eugenic" programme preventing what you see to see as their "final demise", i.e., our coming from their lombs?
I should rather like to think that they would simply consider us as their own offspring and successors, and be instead proud of the evolutionary achievements originating from their branch. Who doesn't want his descendants to be stronger, smarter, more resilient, with a more intense and extended life experience, than she or he is? How would the increasing speeed and and deliberatedness of such inevitable change be qualified as "extinction"?
Even though of course transhumanism cannot be reduced to biological evolution or diachronic speciation, as artificial as they may be in our case, I choose this metaphor also in order to emphasise that in Europe that the general perception of transhumanism may have much more to do with its "wet" version (as in genetic engineering, enhancement drugs, longevity and rejuvenation therapies, liberal eugenism, biotech, cloning, etc.) than in the US.
Accordingly, in my experience Blade Runners' replicants, Gattaca's "valids" or Jack Vance's Amarantos come to mind more often, when discussing transhumanism, than Forbidden Planet- or Terminator-like robots. This leaves ample space for controversy, but does not involve especial suspicions of anti-hedonicism or meat-cage hate... 
Posted by TransAlchemy on 06/11 at 10:38 PM
@Natasha Vita-More
"Of course the transhuman evolves from the human. "
This not be as clear cut as you state it.
A possible path of augmentations may be received form our artificial intelligence scientist, they may find ways to "transform" the humans into a more efficient transhumans mixed with a little of Ai.
So the final form if such a thing even exist would not evolve directly from humans, but from a mixture of artificial intelligence and humans.
Posted by Natasha Vita-More on 06/12 at 10:34 AM
TransAlchemy, the hybrid you describe would be more of a posthuman configuarion. Do you agree? Nonetheless, its genealogy would be a distant (however near or far) cousin of the human.
The transional human evolves from a human. Other scenarios which do not evolve from human or transhuman -- new life forms, artificial life, etc. are a different story, as in your "final form" scenario which delves into another area.
Posted by Natasha Vita-More on 06/12 at 10:44 AM
The hybrid AI / transhuman descendent configuration you describe would be a distant (near or far) of the human. If the AI departs from its transhuman DNA, then it would be a new species. (Artificial Life is not human. But some of its "behaviors" are designed to mimic human behaviors (Karl Sims' work, for example).
You bring to the discussion issues of genealogy and it will be interesting to see what terms/conditions will be employed to broaden or lessen the lines between species.
Posted by Stefano Vaj on 06/12 at 10:56 AM
I would still define that as "evolving directly from humans".
After all, once one recognises that biological children, given a sufficient time, may well end up more different from their ancestors than mere "children of the mind", why to discriminate against the latter?
I would even go so far as to say that "posthumans" are by definition sentient beings having directly evolved from human beings, as we would call transaliens or transinsects beings finding instead their technological or biological roots in aliens or insects.
Posted by TransAlchemy on 06/13 at 09:22 AM
All of this was very interesting, that ive decided to create a possible family tree structure. Ofcourse theres no real way of knowing how it will develop but its fun to explore..
http://tinyurl.com/ltwyal
If someone takes time to seriously explore this further I would help out.
Posted by Natasha Vita-More on 06/13 at 05:11 PM
Here is the one I created a couple of years ago, and which probably needs some fine tuning. It starts with the Beta Human to Human 3.0.
http://www.natasha.cc/transhumantree.htm
It is a little difficult to read because I made the font too small in the graph. I will redo it when I decide bring in links to aesthetics.
Also, I would like to include posthumanism and post humanism. At the present I am not sure because if either or both are not an outgrowth of postmodernism and if there is no codified philosophy of either or both, as there is with transhumanism, then are they really philosophies?
And what is the real difference between transhumanism and posthumanism other than academics' favoring the posthuman as a term (which is packaged nicely by theorists).
Posted by Stefano Vaj on 06/13 at 05:49 PM
In fact, I am persuaded that an obvious link, between similar terminology, exists between posthuman-ism and post-humanism, even though this opinion is far from unanimous. This is especially true in Europe: see Sloterdijk, Faye, Lyotard, Christen, Champetier, Marchesini, Campa, and my humble self. But Ansell Pearson (Viroid Life: Perspectives on Nietzsche and the Transhuman Condition), in spite of some polemical attitude with mainstream transhumanism, is a good American example...
Posted by TransAlchemy on 06/14 at 01:25 AM
Wow Natasha Vita-More great flow chart... I kinda feel embarrassed by the little quick visual aid I put together, I just never seen anyone make one before.
I will study it closely and report any possible useful information..
Now right off the back there is one major debatable question in making any chart like this. At what point can we say that the body has been augemented enough to be considered a new version.
How much augementation is needed to go from Human 1.0 (original) to Human 2.0 and is the same amount of augments needed to go to Human 3.0
There would need to be a universal agreement on this before we can truly start to map out the possible paths Humanity could take, assuming if thats even possible.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 06/19 at 12:43 PM
I enjoy my body. I enjoyed it more when I was younger, but I still enjoy it some. Sadly I know that if it still works in, say, 30 years, I will enjoy it much less, or not at all.
If at that moment I have the option to move to a non-biological body, robotic or virtual, I will jump on it. Beats being in a wheelchair, confined to bed, or dead.
Of course it will be difficult to become used to a non-biological body. But again, it beats becoming used to a diseased, rotting and dying body. Sorry to be so blunt, but I have seen that happen to persons I loved. Most of us enjoy our bodies... when we are 20. Not when we are 80.
I am persuaded that many, and perhaps most, people of future generations will become used to non-biological bodies, and they will love it because these bodies, besides lasting longer, will also be able to offer much more in terms of sensations and pleasure.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 06/19 at 12:52 PM
Athena: " Are you suggesting that transhuman forms will not include (self-)evolved human descendants? If so, we'd be aiding in our own extinction."
Future humans will look like today's humans, or radically different. They may have biological bodies, robotic bodies, hybrid bodies, or no permanent bodies. Some may choose to live in VR, take up physical bodies if and when they. Some will roam the galaxies, some will stay on earth, and some will do other things that we cannot imagine. I would suggest that we leave to them _their_ decision on whether to wear bodies and which bodies to wear. Extinction? Where is extinction in a galaxy full of happy humans (whatever their shape and material substrate)?
Posted by John Grigg on 06/24 at 07:11 AM
Natasha, I very much enjoyed your article and how you tried to dispel a very common misunderstanding about transhumanism. It made me think of my twenties when I painfully forced myself to learn to dance and ask girls to shimmy and shake with me. : ) I hope becoming a transhuman will not be quite so painful, though I doubt it! lol
I have so often run into the misperception that transhumanists hate their bodies and want to all become uploaded into computers as soon as they can. And to be sure, there are some who have this attitude, but certainly not everyone. I think the real problem is that many people (even those with advanced academic credentials) write papers critiquing transhumanism when they are still not familiar with it as a whole. They read a few essays and maybe a book or two, and feel then they're all set.
When I attended a conference about transhumanism in Arizona, I was horrified at the shallow grasp some of the attendees there had about the subject. One professor confessed he did not even know what transhumanism was until he was approached about giving a talk on the subject, and that the time he had to prepare had been very limited!
I find transhumanist academics show a great deal of real knowledge and insight regarding the writings of their mainstream counterparts. Nick Bostrom being a shining example to point out. I only hope we will eventually see the favor being returned on a regular basis...
John
Posted by Stephen Kelsall on 07/05 at 04:05 AM
Transhumanism is a secularized Christian theology.
Posted by Natasha Vita-More on 07/05 at 01:28 PM
Stephen, your statement is an unverifiable declaration which is impossible to evidence. It reads like a lackadaisical assumption that clearly negates knowledge.
Transhumanism is a philosophical outlook based on science, technology and reason. Critical thinking is essential. It has no basis in theology.
Posted by Fat loss 4 idiots on 07/08 at 04:16 PM
I should rather like to think that they would simply consider us as their own offspring and successors, and be instead proud of the evolutionary achievements originating from their branch. Who doesn't want his descendants to be stronger, smarter, more resilient, with a more intense and extended life experience, than she or he is? How would the increasing speeed and and deliberatedness of such inevitable change be qualified as "extinction"?
Posted by Stephen Kelsall on 07/16 at 05:05 AM
Natasha, the statement contains a proposition and posits an argument. But just to back it up further, there are several supporting arguments for the claim in this youtube clip by Denis Alexander
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAYtTadQ8vk
Incidentally, I didn't say transhumanism has a "basis in theology", but rather, it is a secularized Christian theology.
Posted by Natasha Vita-More on 07/16 at 12:18 PM
Alexander has a supposition which is inaccurate. It is merely his attempt to frame transhumanism into a conept which he can explain from his particular area of knowledge. No matter how hard he may attempt to frame transhumanism as he likes, he is simply off the mark.
Transhumanism does not propose the worshiping of technology. It simply suggests the application of science and technology to improve the human condition.
Further, transhumanism does not want to leave behind the body. It simply wants to improve where biology goes awry and build more flexible, durable structures for life.
Lastly transhumanism is not based in mystical lore
Posted by Stephen Kelsall on 07/25 at 07:30 PM
Natasha, let me know when you next visit Australia. We can invite you to our research institute for some discussion and perhaps organize a short seminar "Transhumanism" Religion, Philosophy or Science?"
Posted by Natasha Vita-More on 07/25 at 09:12 PM
I will be in Australia this November 23 - 28 at the Re:live conference and the Super Human conference. I'd be delighted to work on a discussion at your institute.
Posted by Stephen Kelsall on 07/28 at 10:05 PM
Many thanks, Natasha, lets try and work something out so you are able to present something for us either before or after your contributution to Re:Live. My email address is stephen.webb@newcastle.edu.au
Please drop me an email so we can touch base and make any arrangements from there. Best regards, Stephen.
Posted by salsa on 09/12 at 10:54 AM
I should rather like to think that they would simply consider us as their own offspring and successors, and be instead proud of the evolutionary achievements originating from their branch. Who doesn't want his descendants to be stronger, smarter, more resilient, with a more intense and extended life experience, than she or he is? How would the increasing speed and and deliberatedness of such inevitable change be qualified as "extinction"?
Posted by Power on 02/11 at 01:09 PM
I'm an artist (musician, poet, author) who can appreciate many different forms of art, but I think interpretive dance is just downright corny. We're talking Sherrilyn Kenyon meets Power Plate Meyer corny here.
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