Negative reactions to transhumanism
Thursday, 27 March 2008 | 46 readers so far
It took me quite a while to realize that many people are very offended by the idea of living forever. Many are offended by the idea of living beyond a natural lifespan. I often find myself asking these people how many years they think it is OK to exist? 100? 500? 1,000? The answers vary but the most amazing thing, to me, is the amount of unrecognized hubris these people harbor because of the flawed memes they have been taught. So many of us are products of our environment.
Why should we only live 75 years? Because God intended it? Because it is programmed into our genes? Because that is how all previous generations lived? Such narrow thinking is silly and condemns us all to death. I do not wish to be a part of staid fatalism.
Ray Kurzweil is an inventor. He is also a transhumanist, and wants to live as long as possible. Wired ran an article on Kurzweil today Futurist Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity. Besides being an extremely long titled article, author Gary Wolf’s screed is a great example of the ire many death cult believers hold for those of us who wan to exist as long as possible. The comments run the gamut, but many of them are disparaging and outright dismissive of the idea of a longer than natural lifespan and the man who wants it.
I’m sure many of these same people believe they are headed for an eternal reward in some sort of ethereal afterlife on an imagined plane of existence none of us can prove. As far as I am concerned Kurzweil is just betting on a different horse, so to speak.
If there is a soul (and I think there is), then the sheer audacity of believing we might one day be able to transfer it to another, longer lasting vessel is not a sin, not in my opinion. God helps those who help themselves. Every visionary throughout history has been mocked. Some of them have needed bodyguards. If Ray Kurzweil ever does, I’m his man. In the mean time, I’ll tip my glass to his immortality. I’d rather party with dreamers and die trying to live than resign myself to a mere century of life on this plane of reality.
1 March 28th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Mr Bob says:
OK, now I know what a transhumanist is and as a “Bible Believer” I have to say…who cares? So what if you want to live long, I am not asking you to believe like me, although if we were friends I might try to convince you of a better worldview but anyone who would be offended somehow by this is a pinhead.
I do however want to mention that “God helps those who help themselves” is not in the Bible…never was. Not sure where that came from.
2 March 28th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Trevor says:
Mr. Bob,
If you pulled out your Bible and started trying to explain something contained within I assume you would want the person you are trying to communicate to actually think through whatever it is you’re trying to explain rather than dismissing it out of hand.
I think that is all most transhumanists would ask from you. We don’t have to agree on every facet of life to experience rich relationships based on mutual respect.
There are certainly some ideas, beliefs and creeds that do not deserve any consideration whatsoever. If you find transhumanism to be one of those than certainly - “who cares” is the right thing to say.
I’ve encountered Christian transhumanists, which I find odd, but I don’t let it bother me. I don’t think the Bible is God’s infallible word - some people are angry at me when they find this out - and I don’t let that bother me either. If I want to live 1,000 years or more and you want to die of natural causes it shouldn’t bother either one of us much.
You are correct that God helps those who help themselves is not in the Bible. It is, however, highly practical advice which, if I were in charge, would be inserted into the Bible where the Song of Solomon currently resides.
3 March 31st, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Gringo_Malo says:
How about some rational arguments against transhumanism?
Would you really want everybody to live forever, including the people mentioned in your previous post? Regrettably, those people are all enfranchised, and will demand that government, rather than the free market, determines who gets to live forever. I don’t know about you, but I estimate that government is confiscating somewhere between 40 and 50 per cent of my meager salary already. Were government to demand 90 per cent for the support of immortal welfare recipients and their immortal offspring, I’d probably eat my shotgun.
It seems that much of what we call consciousness is associated with electrochemical activity in the brain. When the electrochemical activity stops, so does consciousness. There’s no empirical evidence that consciousness exists independently of the brain. So it seems unlikely that anyone’s going to move his consciousness to another vessel. The best you can do is to preserve the vessel you’ve got for as long as possible.
4 April 1st, 2008 at 10:33 am
Trevor says:
Gringo,
We can agree to disagree on that last sentence. Just because there is no CURRENT way to transfer consciousness to another vessel doesn’t mean one will not appear - and soon!
Reverse time two hundred years and tell someone their great great great grandchildren will take for granted the ability to get in an aluminum container and cross the globe in a few hours at 30000 feet above the earth. Same reaction most people today have to the idea of extended or infinite lifespans with the ability to make a backup copy of yourself.