From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sun Aug 12 2001 - 09:18:22 MDT
Spudboy100@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 8/11/2001 4:42:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> Ken@Innovation-On-Demand.com writes:
>
> << I don't think Humanity will make it much past Mars (if that).
> Posthumanity will go for the stars, and they will either be smart enough to
> solve this or even smarter and not care.
>
> -Ken >>
> I am guessing that when Techno-Sapien surges through the Milky Way, she/he
> (not Ver-sorry Egan Fans), they will still refer to themselves as "human" or
> humanity. They may be Johhny-5 robots, or Minksy Intelligent Dust Motes, or
> X-Men, or radio-telepathic groups, or happy clones, or super-networked
> personalities, or even morons like us; or even a Heinz-57 variety of species.
> They will still feel "human" for a long time to come. I Think.
This is inherent in the sense of self phenomenon. The individual will
generally always consider themselves to be 'the average', unless they
suffer from self-image disorders, and thus they will consider themselves
to be their own definition of 'human', judging others humanness
according to their own self-standard. This can be heavily influenced by
societal canalization, as is evident with the discussed phenomenon of
blacks trusting whites more than other blacks, but any individual, left
to their own devices, will generally consider themselves 'human' first.
What is to be of concern is not how individuals see themselves, but
future problems of racism and discrimination as transhumans diverge into
many diverse paths, such that some humans will cease to consider others
to be 'human' if they are excessively focused on defining 'human' in
terms of physical appearance or mode of existence.
For this reason I am generally opposed to defining the homo sapiens
genome exclusively as 'human'. Any member of the homo group of species,
and any intelligences that evolve from them should be considered
'human'. Failing to do so I can guarantee will result in
luddite/transhuman race wars.
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