From: Michael P. Read (mpread@cox.net)
Date: Sat Dec 21 2002 - 19:59:53 MST
Makes sense to me. However, I have never heard of the "law of the
excluded middle."
Mike Read
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]
On Behalf Of Steve
Sent: Saturday, December 21, 2002 3:33 AM
To: extropians@tick.javien.com
Subject: Re: The Baen library
>Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 07:46:04 -0800
>From: Charles Hixson <charleshixsn@earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: The Baen library
>Consider the concept of the Protectors. They seem clearly TransHuman.
>I tend to consider all science fiction aliens as disguised transhumans,
>but the protectors aren't even disguised.
>But contrast the differing ways in which intelligence expresses itself
>in the different species of the "Known Worlds" series. This seems
>clearly significant for TransHumanity. These are differing paths that
>we could take. And we may end up taking all of them.
I realise what I have to say is not going to be particularly well
received,
but it does need to be pointed out to folks on this and similar lists:
Any notion of "transhuman" is fallacious! This is because of the law
of the excluded middle. Evolution can be from (sub/pre-human) to
(Homo Sapiens/ Human), and to (after/post-human) .... but at no
stage is there a separate "trans" stage. Sure, you might get two or
more classes co-existing at the same time, and individuals with traits
from more than one category ... so an individual humanoid might
be more regonisably human than post-human for example.
We cannot meaningful aim to be "transhuman" .... only post-human.
Steve Nichols
www.posthuman.tv
***************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 17:58:50 MST