Re: Why I think extropianism is hardly a new philosophy

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Aug 04 2003 - 02:24:57 MDT

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    On Sun, Aug 03, 2003 at 08:20:55PM -0400, p_chikara@hotmail.com wrote:
    > > So in what way are we misreading predecessors? You do not give any
    > >examples, just suggestive quotes that they "had the same ideas" (or
    > > rather, have ideas similar to the ones we develop in the light of
    > > current knowledge and ideas).
    >
    > That's it: since these ideas have been around I think it's not productive to
    > go through the motion of selling them again as "new" by grouping them under
    > a new brand; doing so sounds like a sleazy marketing move. Even if the only
    > contribution of extropianism to these ideas would have been an update in the
    > light of current knowledge, I'd say might as well also pick-up the old name
    > to do it and to improve on it.

    So, what is the "old name"? It certainly isn't materialism, and I doubt
    it would make sense to say that we are Fourierians or Mirandolans.

    I think you obsess too much about the label of the ideas. I care far
    more about where we are taking the ideas and how they might be
    developed; the spread of the ideas of the transhumanist stream does not
    primarily hinge on what we call the stream.

    > So our intellectual contribution should go to specifying what we mean by
    > materialism, I don't see the need to make it a "double-whammy" but for those
    > who do, I suggest immortalist materialist (would it be presumptuous of me to
    > suggest my own interest, hedonist materialist wich is also an immortalism?

    But what about the transhumanists who are not materialists (like my
    friend the christian transhumanist), or do not find immortalism to be
    the key point (like Freeman Dyson)? Hedonist materialism sounds fun and
    has its strong adherents like Dave Pearce, but not all transhumanists
    are hedonists to the same extent. I think you will find that any label
    you care to set up will not cover the range of thought among the stream
    of thought, so why not make one up to cover it? Or define transhumanism
    as a particular form of humanism.

    > one who understands matter is very likely to be an immortalist so
    > simply claiming to be a materialist is enough to tell about one's ethics etc
    > Anders, I'll get 'round the rest of your interesting answer later.

    Huh? Why should one become an immortalist by understanding matter.
    Epicuros was the quintessential (hedonic) materialist, but he was not an
    immortalist by any stretch.

    -- 
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    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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