From: Greg Burch (gregburch@gregburch.net)
Date: Tue Aug 05 2003 - 08:03:44 MDT
[I'm back from a working trip to China and getting ahead in the inevitable
catch-up that follows being away for a while. I've also had chronic email
problems since returning, having only intermittent connectivity. And the
dog ate my homework...]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: p_chikara@hotmail.com
> Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 10:16 PM
>
> I used the word "extropians" in a serious discussion recently
> and once again was reminded that extropians sound like goofy
> cultists.
To some people, this is undoubtedly true, but any new idea or set of ideas
may sound goofy when it's new. (I'll address whether extropianism is "new,"
a matter you question in another post, in the other thread you started.)
Only time will tell whether an idea that is considered "goofy" when it
is new will become less so over time.
> 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 isn't a new allegation against transhumanist ideas, and one that I
think has been answered well by others both in years past and in response
to this post. My short answer is that there are a number of assumptions
in the proposed indictment, each of which have to be addressed separately,
and none of which stand up to close scrutiny. The first and most important
is whether the projections of possible "future bodies" transhumanists talk
about are "impossible." Of course, there is wide range of such projects,
from the simplest and most straightforward kinds of augmentation with near-term
technology (already achieved, really, by nascent cyborgs such as people
in wheelchairs, people who use various existing prosthetics, etc), to more
radical genetic and biochemical and biomechanical augmentation, through
conceptions such as more or less complete uploads. All of these things
seem "possible" to me, although WHEN they may be possible is open to question
and discussion. So the first reply is that the "bodies" we discuss aren't
impossible -- they just aren't possible YET.
The second point is whether there's some kind of "denial of the flesh" going
on in transhumanism and extropianism. I would certainly say not, although
there is a definite strain of "mentalism" in some of the discussion of the
more advanced kinds of uploading that one could read a kind of "anticarnic"
(to coin a term) desire into. Speaking for myself, it's precisely because
I DO enjoy the pleasures that flesh and mind together offer that I consider
myself an extropian and a transhumanist. I like life and want more of it
for a longer period of time.
Question: When a person who happens to be a quadriplegic works to restore
the functioning of his limbs, is he in some kind of "denial of his flesh?"
In a sense, yes: He's in denial of his flesh AS IT IS. He wants BETTER
FLESH. The thing that defines transhumanism and extropian thought is the
rejection of the "natural human" as the limit on what we can be, just as
the quadriplegic rejects his immobile state as a limit.
I -- and many other transhumanists and extropians I know are far from "promoters
of an ascetic ideal:" We like to have fun with our bodies and want to have
more fun with better bodies and better minds.
Greg Burch
Vice-President, Extropy Institute
My blog: <http://www.gregburch.net/burchismo.html>
"Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest
survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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