Out of Pod Experience

So I started my summer semester last week and one of my classes is Philosophy. The teacher handed out our final project for the class due in August and I want to gauge this community's reaction on it.

The project itself is on the ethics of a subject. I am to explain both sides of the topic of choice, why they are for or against, and then give my own opinion on the subject. Since I already have an opinion on the subject I would like to see the different arguments from other perspectives.

Subject: Transhumanism

What I need/want you to do is explain to me why you are for or against transhumanism. *Note* Religious views will not be usable in this project. Nothing personal but my religious views do not necessarily match up to your religious views and therefore negate the argument of "Religion".

I'm curious to see some of your arguments. If debate ensues please keep it civil. While it's not apparent in some threads I regard the EVE community to be very intelligent as a whole.

Thank you for your input and have fun!

Edit: Thank you for all your input! I used some of it in my paper and those I mention have been given the credit. Again, thank you!!!


Disclaimer: If anybody is curious, any information I use will be cited in my paper using APA formatting. If you do not want your views used in my paper, please don't post in this thread.

The ethics of transhumanism (like the ethics of anything) has to do with what actions people will take to violate the rights of other people. Of course the definitions of "violate", "rights", and "people" change depending on who you ask. A secondary interest of ethics is in whether an action *should* be performed even if it doesn't serve to violate anyone's rights. This "should" is based on ethical principles that we may or may not agree on.

I understand transhumanism to be the advancement and superevolution of humans by use of technology and science. I am for this movement, and probably as liberally in support of it as possible. I spend personal time prototyping and experimenting with prosthetics so this probably influences my opinion.

There are a lot of ethical concerns that could come out from the use of technology that enhances the human condition.

Technology is expensive (think about how expensive rapid gene resequencing, or anthromorphic robotics, or anti-aging technology would be). With expense comes inequality, so we would be creating a class of people who fundamentally outclass the poor and the incapable. I think that's been true of any technology, and maybe the world today is pretty screwed up from an economic gap point of view but I think technology has helped us more than anything.. longer lifespans, less pain in medical procedures, communicating with each other, and so on. The economic gap will get swallowed by market realities. All technology has to, at some point, become a property of the masses.

Technology may require the exploitation of others. Some may argue that using biomass from fetuses to advance genetic science is exploitation. Plenty of technology today exploits rare materials from poverty-stricken countries (the computers we use are probably violating at least one conflict mineral law somewhere). This point of view might seem cruel but some exploitation is unavoidable, and the ethical evolution in an industry will probably follow (not precede) a technological boom. I think we need computers, and some conflict minerals have to be taken through exploitation until the industry can curb this behavior.

Technology is not a natural part of evolution. I find this particular belief to be somewhat ridiculous. When I see a naturally disabled person, or a person missing limbs from an accident, I believe that a capable prosthetic should be in that person's future instead of him thinking that a robotic leg is unnatural. I think humans define their own future and bioengineering is as much part of a natural process as the slow walk along the evolution of our species.

Technology provides "unethical" advantages. I think Google Glass is a good modern example. With a blink of an eye or by saying a word you can record upskirt (downskirt?) videos. I think technology can always be abused, but I don't think there's any credible example that would convince me to abandon technology simply because it is open for abuse. I think people make laws to protect each other's rights and these laws should be used to properly govern technology (instead of rejecting it completely).

What is your opinion about transhumanism?

Mind and body is in fact the same construct. You can't get one without another. If you could join some other construct to your own and move your consciousness in a form of what you roughtly describing as mind and what is in fact an information and whole structure of it to a different construct, without stoping it's functionalities and workings in real time, you will become it. And you will be yourself all the time.

If I would call you a "clothed monkey" would it change something in your "humanity"? Will you become something else than human? You will not. You will stay yourself. Human is just a name for an aproximate of yourself, all what is human is in fact your whole construct, distinct. There have been people that did not considered other races than white as Humans. They did not considered woman as Human. But they could have been more intelligent than someone not recognizing them as Humans. All what matters is respect and recognition. If you will merge with another construct that can respect your whole functionalities, you will stay yourself, no matter how you will be named. I could call you AR-0187 but you will still be yourself. It does not matter if you are human or not. You can give yourself any name.

And what if it would be possible? And how could you differentiate yourself from not yourself? You are changing as a construct now in this moment. As I write this, I am as much myself as i was one second ago, despite all the changes that ocurred to me in this second. How do I know that? Because I feel continuity, there is process, a stream of consciousness here, whole memories make you, sensations, your body, everything, and all of it is changing.

Fact is, your psyche is changing constantly, your mood is changing, your actual definitions, your opinions, All that is just an information you process. This is consciousness, a stream of changes, it is you.

It is, however, changing inside a pre-formated container. While there is still some uncertainty in all this change, you can still kinda foresee where it will end.

Remove the container however...



Don't get me wrong tho, what I'm only trying to say that this is unexplored ground, so thread carefully.

How do You know that the feeling of continuity is true? It Could've been faked by the NSA or even Aliens!

That said, humans are basically hard coded, you are your brain, there is no way around that.

If you could find a way to remove your brain while at the same time preserving your consciousness, the end product would be something that never has been human but would still think of itself as something that once has been, or even still is, human simply because it would have all your memories. But make no mistake, that construct never has been and never will be human. It might be aware of itself, a person even, but not human.

I think this is a fallacy. The consciousness is part of the so-called body "container" because all it is is electrical impulses. There is no separate container/consciousness.

from a biological point of view, your view has merit.

from a psychological point of view? the jury is, and will be for the forseeable future, out on that one.