From: JAY DUGGER (duggerj1@charter.net)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 16:09:19 MDT
On Fri, 1 Aug 2003 23:15:49 -0400
p_chikara@hotmail.com wrote:
>I used the word "extropians" in a serious discussion
>recently and once again
>was reminded that extropians sound like goofy cultists.
Sigh. That's familiar.
[snip]
>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").
>
Alienation doesn't necessarily follow from asceticism,
which in turn doesn't necessarily equal
self-mortification.
Ideas about uploading a human mind or radically modified
human bodies express a hoped-for ideal, not a rejection of
the actual. Perhaps few extropes or transhumanists strive
for an idealized human body through diet or exercise, but
that makes such people (like me) lazy and wishful at
worst.
As for "primo body" or uploading serving as
allegories--well, of course they do. Any actual radical
transformation lies pretty far in the future, and might
have significant drawbacks not currently imagined or even
imaginable.
People do take small steps toward rebuilt bodies and
uploading. It's a slippery slope from cosmetics and wigs,
past eyeglasses and contact lenses to prosthetics and
beyond--but it's a continuous curve. A similar progression
exists from wristwatches, possibly the first physically
intimate mental assistant since pocket-sized notebooks, to
portable cameras and audio recorders, to cell phones,
PDAs, and wearable computers.
If you need an example of a purely asethetic bodily
improvement, and plastic surgery won't serve, here's one.
I'd like to have a better sense of hearing to improve my
ability to appreciate music. I'd like to have absolute
pitch. I'd like to have the ability to discriminate
absolute loudness, instead of about seven relative levels.
I can't imagine what current music would sound like if I
could hear volume as finely as pitch, much less imagine
music composed by people with that ability.
Hope this helps--you might also look at Kurzweil's "Human
Body 2.0". Please let the list know if your discussions
profit.
Jay Dugger : Til Eulenspiegel
http://www.vibepusher.com/~jdugger
Sometimes the delete key serves best.
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