From: Steve (steve@multisell.com)
Date: Sat Aug 10 2002 - 22:21:05 MDT
A well known Extropian recently claimed to me:
"I have my own posthuman philosophy."
But how can anyone have a distinctive post-human philosophy since they don't
think of
themself as post-human. I can have a view or opinions about transhuman
philosophy, but
I can't have my own "Transhuman philosophy" because I don't count myself as
Transhuman!
"Post-" means "after", there are only a very limited number of possible
interpretations.
Transhuman , if it means to be different in any relevent way to straight
"human" is already a
subset of post (after)-human. I fail to see how you can deny this without
bending the normal usage of
"post" and "after" out of recognition.
"Extropian" on the other hand permits infinite permutations, of which Max
More's principles
are a particular formulation. Maybe Extropian is a brand, style, or subset
of Transhumanism, but both
these two are subsets of the wider POSTHUMAN philosophy.
The general view as expressed on Extro& transhuman lists is that we as a
species are still in transition from
human, thru some weird intermittent state, to some undefined and unspecified
future posthuman
state that will be radically different from the current norm, and this
change will take a long but
unspecified period of time to happen.
One pet belief may be that this time-frame is 600 years, and someone else
might speculate 700 years ... but disregard such quibbles and all
Transhumanist views are
pretty much similar.
My view is that we in the West started to radically evolve away from the
agrarian stage at time of the
industrial revolution, and we have already moved beyond our human forebears
thus are After-human.
My posthuman "philosophy" brings about an intertheoretic reduction of less
basic positions. I guess
it is up to me to demonstrate to everyone why it is more efficient than
half-way house, Trans theories.
I don't think this is a dry academic exercise by the way, but believe
prefered identity has an impact on
psychological wellbeing and personal development. Therefore wider social
impact too.
Inventing further transitory stage(s) is pointless and regressive. Much more
positive to behave and live
as the post-humans that we are ..... yes, everyone is potentially post-human
and is the expert on
their own identity ... so while also everyone is different, an archeologist
from the future who digs
a C21st individual out of the ground would look at the D-shaped bone (as
opposed to circular
section C19th bones) and the height & burial artefects differences, and
conclude that two distinct
species were being examined. Don't take my word for this, a Prof has pointed
this out & papers written.
Perhaps as a game I will have my computer generate a few million alternative
and equally valid,
sets of Extropian principles. You can invent different descriptions of
particular posthumans or even
general traits, but this isn't the point, individual difference will always
exist unless everyone is cloned.
The point is that I am more radical and ambitious in claiming that (at least
in my case, I can't speak for
everyone & don't need to) the posthuman state has been reached, and I formed
the egroup list &c.
to assist others in a similar evolution. We become what we think we are to a
great extent. Suggestion
has a real potency. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis.
By the intertheoretic reduction of "transhumanism" to a more basic and
useful "posthuman"
position, greater clarity is given to the whole topic for the uninitiated.
Methinks I detect signs of movement
towards my position already ..... anyone who visits the Posthuman lounge now
has a fledgling posthuman,
not transhuman, persona. Labels are seemingly trivial on one level, but
mis-label something and you
might be storing up problems and causing all sorts of mis-categorisations in
the future.
Steve Nichols
POSTHUMAN NOW!
*Doing something about upgrading the human condition *
(1) MVT ... solution to the Mind Body problem, the true (thus)
all-conquering unifying philosophy.
(2) Chaturanga .. replacing common Chess, the B&W era icon of human thought
(3) Enochian Chess ... exposing the supernaturalist fallacy by beating
occultism at its own game
(4) Reverse hypnosis ... a powerful new psychotherapeutic toolkit, towards
enlightenment
(5) Sentient machines ... only possible by the application of Median Vision
Theory
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