Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 5:30 pm
I do find it remarkable how many people make statements about things always being as they are, or about how "human nature" is inherantly this or that--usually something pretty pessimistic. But, the fact is, no trend can continue indefinitely. Humans are still subject to natural laws, just like every other member of the cosmos. And that includes evolution. We might not be evolving the way we want, but we're still evolving, and very quickly. In a few hundred years, genetic engineering, molecular cybernetics, and other technologies we can only begin to imagine, let alone predict, will give our descendants the ability to redirect human and post-human evolution in such a manner that humans and their progeny entities will be able to decide for themselves how to evolve.
Obviously, there's hurtles to overcome. Today's issues are the most basic. There's the basics. Over half our species is infected with chronic disease, and a third don't have the steady supply of clean, running water we take for granted. Until we can fix the most basic problems of living standards and bring equality of living to all parts of the world, progress will be awkward and frought with a continuation of the conflict that so many people seem convinced will go on forever.
The next hurtle, still more immediate, is philosophical. As long as people genuinely believe that Armageddon is around the corner, then there's no motivation towards long-term thinking. Why endorse green technology and recycle when you believe that God intends to destroy the Earth five years from now? How can you even consider directing human evolution when you don't believe the science describing evolution in the first place? How can you employ technologies to eliminate disease and improve intelligence when you're convinced that God forbids it? In more remote countries, superstition interferes with basic medicine and food, but reactionary belief systems plague even the most advanced portions of the modern world. These ideas will be slow to change, but generational experiences and new technologies should help to force the issue--though again, unfortunately, not without conflict.
After that, the main hurtle I foresee is repairing the damage already set in motion that will have happened from 1850 to about, maybe 2050. One has to stabilize the homeworld. We won't be able to colonize and terraform other worlds probably for several centuries, so it's an issue of fundamental neccessity. None-the-less, the consciousness shift that the above paragraph implies would suggest that a better sense of community and collaboration with the rest of Earth's biosphere will come about, especially once biotechnology gets past the basic keeping people from dying and goes more into the realm of genetic engineering that blurs the lines between humans and other Earth species. (Sounds pretty out there right now, but look around; the desire to cross the bridge is right here in this very forum, even if the means isn't.)
Once we've matured as a species and cleaned up our room, we can move on to the real stuff of intelligent civilizations--transfer of consciousness to a stable medium (one that doesn't die of old age after less than 120 years or so), engineering minds and bodies capable of more than what we can do now--imagine if you could remember everything you ever experienced? That would prevent a lot of blunders in our daily lives. Suppose you were immune to chemical depression, could blow off anything that you did not want to feel sad or angry about? You could concentrate on picking your fights and your issues, rather than obsessing about things you know in your mind are trivial. At this point, problems such as bad backs or dying of cancer are historic relics.
If anyone wants to challenge the morality of transhumanist technology, my answer is to challenge the morality of allowing today's suffering to continue any further. The overwhelming majority of human potential right now is locked away in suffering, be it war, poverty, substandard living conditions, chronic pain, depression, other mental illnesses, limited intelligence, Alzheimer's disease and other forms of senile dementia, malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, diabetes, blindness, paralysis, political oppression, the list goes on and on.
Obviously, there's hurtles to overcome. Today's issues are the most basic. There's the basics. Over half our species is infected with chronic disease, and a third don't have the steady supply of clean, running water we take for granted. Until we can fix the most basic problems of living standards and bring equality of living to all parts of the world, progress will be awkward and frought with a continuation of the conflict that so many people seem convinced will go on forever.
The next hurtle, still more immediate, is philosophical. As long as people genuinely believe that Armageddon is around the corner, then there's no motivation towards long-term thinking. Why endorse green technology and recycle when you believe that God intends to destroy the Earth five years from now? How can you even consider directing human evolution when you don't believe the science describing evolution in the first place? How can you employ technologies to eliminate disease and improve intelligence when you're convinced that God forbids it? In more remote countries, superstition interferes with basic medicine and food, but reactionary belief systems plague even the most advanced portions of the modern world. These ideas will be slow to change, but generational experiences and new technologies should help to force the issue--though again, unfortunately, not without conflict.
After that, the main hurtle I foresee is repairing the damage already set in motion that will have happened from 1850 to about, maybe 2050. One has to stabilize the homeworld. We won't be able to colonize and terraform other worlds probably for several centuries, so it's an issue of fundamental neccessity. None-the-less, the consciousness shift that the above paragraph implies would suggest that a better sense of community and collaboration with the rest of Earth's biosphere will come about, especially once biotechnology gets past the basic keeping people from dying and goes more into the realm of genetic engineering that blurs the lines between humans and other Earth species. (Sounds pretty out there right now, but look around; the desire to cross the bridge is right here in this very forum, even if the means isn't.)
Once we've matured as a species and cleaned up our room, we can move on to the real stuff of intelligent civilizations--transfer of consciousness to a stable medium (one that doesn't die of old age after less than 120 years or so), engineering minds and bodies capable of more than what we can do now--imagine if you could remember everything you ever experienced? That would prevent a lot of blunders in our daily lives. Suppose you were immune to chemical depression, could blow off anything that you did not want to feel sad or angry about? You could concentrate on picking your fights and your issues, rather than obsessing about things you know in your mind are trivial. At this point, problems such as bad backs or dying of cancer are historic relics.
If anyone wants to challenge the morality of transhumanist technology, my answer is to challenge the morality of allowing today's suffering to continue any further. The overwhelming majority of human potential right now is locked away in suffering, be it war, poverty, substandard living conditions, chronic pain, depression, other mental illnesses, limited intelligence, Alzheimer's disease and other forms of senile dementia, malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, diabetes, blindness, paralysis, political oppression, the list goes on and on.
