On Wed, Aug 22, 2001 at 06:04:48PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> Let's agree that thinking the material world as something "bad" is a
> very strange notion (to say the very least), and that we do not think so.
Well, my point was that quite a few transhumanists do have such notions.
> > A cybergnostic would do this, although many people who
> > are in practice cybergnostics have not thought through
> > these issues very carefully and simply reflexively say
> > that uploading is good. Once you start to pick at the
> > question *why* uploading is a good thing, then much of
> > cybergnosticism evaporates.
>
> It's such a catchy term, "cybergnosticism". Can you say anything
> further critical about it beyond the "cybergnostics" think that
> the physical world is inherently bad? Is there any reason that
> we shouldn't co-opt (i.e. steal) the term from them?
Well, the problem is that to a large extent *we* are the cybergnostics -
to my knowledge there are no groups calling themselves cybergnostics in
the sense I used.
The original argument against them was made in June by Waldemar Ingdahl,
who pointed out the tendency of transhumanists to turn towards
technonaivism and cybergnosticism instead of dealing with real issues.
Thinking that technology is the solution to every problem (or the only
interesting solution) or that everything will be better in the far
future so we don't have to worry much about the present is clearly a bad
thing. I was using the term cybergnosticism in a more narrow sense to
denote a certain position about uploading (and sometimes AI) as opposed
to the physical world.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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