From: Nick Bostrom (bostrom@ndirect.co.uk)
Date: Wed Apr 15 1998 - 20:58:05 MDT
Keith Elis wrote:
> TRANSHUMANISM: Any philosophy of life that accelerates our development
> beyond currently human limitations by way of science, technology,
> creativity, and other rational means.
>
> This requires every philosophy that might call itself transhumanist to
> *prove* it by pointing to the ways it accelerates development.
Social systems tend to be quasi-chaotical, so it might be impossible
to tell with any certainty what philosophies have what effects on our
development. Suppose Rifkin formulates a really horrible philosophy
that causes a huge backlash for all technophobic thinking. That would
then make him a transhumanist, whereas we ourselves, if we have bad
luck, might not be.
("by way of" is probably better than "by means of", since "means" is
otherwised used twice in one sentence.)
_____________________________________________________
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 - 14:48:55 MST