From: Perry E. Metzger (perry@piermont.com)
Date: Fri Apr 04 1997 - 10:40:53 MST
> From: Langlois <langlois@postoffice.ptd.net>
> Subject: A new topic to persue
>
> I am currently writing a paper for a sociology class about the
> ethics of Transhumanism. It deals with the ethics of defying
> evolution to raise ourselves. In essence its about Whether we can
> play god with technology.
>
> I am very interested in what everyone has to say on the topic, if
> anyone has been storing pithy one-liners for a theological
> vs. technological argument now would be the time to use them. The
> grader of this paper is very conservitive bordering on creationism
> and I am going to have to go a long way to make my case.
"Thou art God," Mike repeated serenely. "That which groks. Anne is
God. I am God. The happy grass are God. Jill groks in beauty
always. Jill is God. All shaping and making and creating together --"
He croaked something in Martian and smiled.
--Robert A. Heinlein, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
"Evolution" is a cold physical process. You can't "defy" it any more
than you can "defy" the wind, or the rain. It doesn't care whether you
are "ignoring" it or not.
Furthermore, there is no god, or gods. We are sentient creatures in a
universe that "just is". There is no creator out there wearing a long
beard to care about our acts. The only creatures that care about our
actions are ourselves. The only morality or ethics that exists is the
one we impose upon ourselves. The universe doesn't care about our
acts.
No great golden tablets exist saying "thou shalt not do X". You are
free to murder, to steal, to love, to grow pretty flowers in your back
yard. Other humans may disapprove of your actions enough to
try to stop you from pursuing them, or approve of them sufficiently to
laud you for them. You may find that setting off dynamite in close
proximity to your body causes you to cease to function as an intact
human organism. However, the disapproval or approval of humans, or the
tendency of the universe to mechanistically kill organisms that
perform certain acts, does not imply an absolute morality of any
sort. It is not "good" or "bad" to set of dynamite near you, or to
grow flowers.
All we can objectively say about an action is that it furthers one's
personal goals or hinders them. In this sense, to a suicidal
psychopathic axe-murderer, it is reasonably in furtherance of one's
goals to go about striking people in the head with axes in the hope
that one day someone will kill you. In this same sense, to a
self-preserving person, locking the suicidal axe murderer in a cage is
an act that reasonably furthers one's personal goal of survival.
Goals are arational -- they are beyond the realm of rationality or
irrationality. It is no more rational to favor survival than not to do
so, any more than it is more "rational" to prefer vanilla ice cream
over chocolate ice cream. Chacun a son gout.
It is true that evolution tends to lead to a preponderance of those
who value survival as a goal, of course. I, for one, favor my personal
survival, and most people I know do, too. Given that most people who
you will meet are in favor of their own personal survival, if one of
your goals is also survival we may prescribe a set of behavioral rules
of thumb, which we will term "ethics" or "morals", that will improve
your chances of meeting your goals in this environment.
Do not, however, mistake this for a claim to an absolute definition of
"right" and "wrong". Such beasts don't exist. One can only say
something is "right" or "wrong" *to* some sentient creature.
Therefore, to answer the question "is it 'right' to play 'god'", we must
ask "what are our goals?"
A number of years ago, I was trying to explain to someone what the
Extropian world/goal was. I finally came up with a reasonably succinct
two word summary. "Personal apotheosis".
Extropians are those who possess personal goals that include life
without bounds or limits to the greatest extent possible. No longer
living in foolish fear of the gods who do not exist, the Extropian
wishes to possess powers previously ascribed to the gods of the
superstitious. We desire unlimited lifespan and the capacity to do
whatever it is that we desire that does not conflict with the laws of
physics. In short, we ask for "freedom, immortality, and the stars",
i.e. "personal apotheosis", to oneself become a "god".
In this context, the question of "tampering with nature" becomes an
obvious benefit, and thus not merely "moral" within the context of
one's personal moral code (the only kind there is!) but actually
laudable. If the tampering furthers our goals, to the extent that we
may manage to do so without being prevented by others, we should do so.
Now, we may answer your original question.
> I am very interested in what everyone has to say on the topic, if
> anyone has been storing pithy one-liners for a theological
> vs. technological argument now would be the time to use them. The
> grader of this paper is very conservitive bordering on creationism
> and I am going to have to go a long way to make my case.
So, to answer your implicit question of "what do I say in this paper",
we must first establish your goals. Is your goal to enjoy free speech,
or is it to get a good grade?
If your goal is to get a good grade, the obvious optimal strategy is
not to challenge the beliefs of the highly prejudiced and entropic
person grading the paper, since you are unlikely to convince a
superstitious fool of the correctness of your world view given that
they live in an entirely alien mind set that, among other things,
believes in "gods". In that case, you are better off trying to be as
non-committal as possible, or perhaps (on the outside) to show that
"tampering with nature" is somehow "permitted" [gag!] by the
superstitious fool's world view.
On the other hand, if you don't care about the grade, and your goal is
to have fun by shocking them, by all means have fun. Mess with their
mind. Shock 'em.
Its all just a question of selecting the strategy that furthers your
goals the best.
Perry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:44:20 MST