Re: FAQ: CULTURAL VIEWPOINT

From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sun Jul 26 1998 - 07:30:44 MDT


At 08:51 AM 7/25/98 EDT, Greg wrote:

<beautifully expressed stuff, as always>

>Transhumanists do not see mankind as a fallen angel, somehow divorced and
>alienated from a romanticized "nature", but rather as merely the current
>leading edge of a process of progressive evolution in the natural world. The
>transhumanist world view is a redemption of the optimism of the Enlightenment
>of the 18th Century, a New Enlightenment reinvigorated by a deeper
>understanding of consciousness as an integral part of natural evolution.

This flies in the face of almost every accepted technical understanding of
evolution. `Progressive evolution' is *exactly* the prime instance of `a
romanticized "nature" ', I'd argue. It sounds more like Theosophy than
science. (Sorry.)

Damien Broderick



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:24 MST