From: natashavita@earthlink.net
Date: Thu Oct 05 2000 - 10:37:27 MDT
In a message dated 9/11/00 3:46:40 PM Central Daylight Time,
wingdahl@hotmail.com writes:
> A philosophical problem, that cuts much, much deeper than
"political views", and I think it is down to the core- and that
makes transhumanism very much weaker than it should be.<
> Today transhumanism should be out of the basement but it isn't.<
I'm not sure it's been in the basement -- but perhaps the drawing
room, classroom, study, studio or lift-off platform. If we are
discussing philosophical issues, then surely you must agree that
both Max More and FM-2030 have provided a broad intellectual
bandwidth of data, in their separate but paralleling views, which
has been the foundation of transhumanism. Such views have been
and continue to be given considerable exposure.
>I've given the list my views and a scetch on remedies, a bit
long, but these things aren't discussed in a 1K mail.
>
> Rather I think that a more intellectual approach is needed,
and a move away
> from activism.
>
> Views?
By intellectual, do you mean a more literary, cultural approach
which brings in a wider and finely tuned audience?
My views are that much of the hard work in memetic engineering
is first to establish a belief system or understanding. Spinning
off the initial work requires the synergistic talents of individuals
who can design ways to implement and incorporate the basic ideas
into culture *AND* to enrich the ideas by branching out. The
branches are developed by those whose keen insights help to take
the initial ideas and discover new or alternative ways these
ideas can spread.
This spreading of the initial philosophy of transhumanism and
new ways of seeing or understanding transhumanism has certainly
been fluid and continues to grow.
Secondly, transhumanism was not a philosophy for me when I wrote
the Transhumanist Statement in 1982. It was a way of viewing
the world around me from a *aesthetic, technological and scientific*
point of view. This view was designed to introduce others to
the possibilities of superlongevity, biotechnology and future
technologies, space exploration, augmenting intelligence and
creativity and the future Creativity Augmentum. I felt that
it was a creative and artistic way of viewing the world and the
art of life.
Natasha Vita-More
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