Re: Are Extropians promoters of an ascetic ideal and alienation?

From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Aug 01 2003 - 21:59:23 MDT

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    >What would be the best answer to someone who would say that the primo body
    >and mind uploading are allegoric figures that transhumanists and extropians
    >are offering that permits to fantasm a body removed from it's attaches with
    >the present, the here and now, impossible bodies, wich makes them promoter
    >of an ascetic ideal, who hates the body and the flesh (and are possibly even
    >worse than christians at it, with their angels without nose or phallus)
    >and consequently alienation (alienation is to be understood here as "being
    >estranged to oneself").

    This is a good question and one often raised by intelligent opponents of
    the transhumanist project. Good responses are required.

    A glib answer might be to ask why it does not apply with equal force to
    anyone who has work done on their decayed teeth, takes vitamin and other
    nutritional supplements, antibiotics and perhaps mood-altering prescription
    pharmaceutics, or (if old and ill) is fitted with an artificial hip or
    heart pace maker?

    All these modifications of the natural body are endured or embraced for the
    *life-enhancing benefits* they provide us as human beings (evolved
    conscious animals) in a world where the ordinary experiences of life tend
    over time to wear down and diminish our physical and mental health.

    It is especially ironic that transhumanists are often accused of being
    `flesh-hating' body deniers on the one hand, and attacked as narcissistic
    and self-obsessed with fitness and healthy longevity on the other. (True,
    some extropians fit more readily into one category or the other.)

    Damien Broderick



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