From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Wed May 15 2002 - 12:46:28 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> I always assumed that transformation to a different state would be
> transhuman. Transmorgrifying into Eyore would be transhumanism for me
> after I transcended my human condition.
If that's the case, transforming yourself into raw hamburger by means of a
simple blender is transmogrification (mog, not morg) and hence
transhumanism. To me the "trans" in "transhuman" implies "improvement on",
not merely "different from".
> Eliezer seems to assume that
> there must be some improvement above the human condition.
What's the point otherwise? I'm sick of being human, but not so sick of it
that I would make changes at random out of sheer boredom. There is a
difference between perfectionism and mere iconoclasm.
> Therefore transmorgrifying into a super-friendly super-smart
> artificially-intelligent Tigger would be transhumanism for him.
Silly, and perhaps not the best of all possible choices in that situation;
but, indeed, "transhumanist".
> (Wait a minute. I'm Eyore again! How come I'm never Tigger?)
(Quietly tinkers with the design for Christopher Robin...)
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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