From: Nick Bostrom (bostrom@ndirect.co.uk)
Date: Tue Jul 14 1998 - 08:19:31 MDT
I've just slightly modified Greg's arrrangement and added questions
about transhumanist art, the singularity, uploading, and a few
more suggested by Michael Nielsen (environment, dangers,
superintelligence). We can still change the format later. I suggest
we focus on one section at a time. (Those who have already made
suggestions for suitable answers may want to repeat them since it
would be convenient to have all anwers to one question on the same
thread.)
Remember, both quotable one-liners and full answers are useful. (And
I assume that everything posted on this thread becomes our common
intellectual property that we can all cut and paste and use at will.)
GENERAL QUESTIONS ABOUT TRANSHUMANISM
What is transhumanism?
Transhumanism is the philosophy which advocates the use of technology
to overcome our biological limitations and transform the human
condition. The accelerating pace of technological development opens up
such revolutionary prospects as superhuman artificial intelligence and
molecular nanotechnology. The consequences of these developments may
include: the biochemical enrichment or redesign of our
pleasure-centres so we enjoy a richer diversity of emotions, life-long
happiness and exhilarating peak experiences every day; the elimination
of ageing; the abolition of disease; and perhaps the gradual
replacement of human bodies with synthetic enhancements and computers.
Or by contrast, it could mean that intelligent life will go extinct.
These are extreme possibilities. Yet they are taken seriously by an
increasing number of scientists and scientifically-literate
philosophers.
What is a posthuman?
A posthuman is a human successor that has been transformed and
augmented to such a degree as to be no longer a mere human.
Posthumans could be completely synthetic or they could be the result
of extending a biological human's capacities with many partial
augmentations. In either case, a posthuman would be a "higher"
life-form than humans, in the same sense as a human could be
said to be higher than an ape. More specifically, this means that a
posthuman may have a greatly expanded intellect and memory;
an indefinite life-span; the ability to choose it's own mental states
and emotions. Also exosomatic ("outside-the-body") improvements
count, such as rapid access to databases or networks containing huge
landscapes of ideas and information; high-bandwidth communication
links with other posthumans (almost like telepathy); and advanced
manufactuing technologies for building physical structures.
Most transhumanists think it is impossible to fully imagine what
posthumans would do or what it would be like be a posthuman -- just
as non-human primates cannot begin fathom the complexity of the
human affairs.
_____________________________________________________
Nick Bostrom
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics
n.bostrom@lse.ac.uk
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:21 MST