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Author Topic: Transhumanism Discussion Thread  (Read 54259 times)

wierd

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #630 on: January 22, 2014, 01:38:34 am »

Indeed.

A person with a dunbar's number in the quadruple digits would be able to know everything about everybody in a fairly busy small metro area. They would know all the gossipy details about THOUSANDS of people.

That is well into superhuman territory. It's just as abnormal as superman's ability to fly and shoot lasers from his eyes.
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WillowLuman

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #631 on: January 22, 2014, 01:41:23 am »

Current modern humans are not capable of true world peace, because they lack the cognitative capacity for it. They have a dunbar's number of only around 200. In a reality of 6+bn people, it is impossible for them to have complete understanding of every other human, and their roles in society. As such, it is impossible for them to fully cooperate perfectly. Inefficient and incorrect abstractions such as group identities and stereotypes are currently required for the level of social complexity we currently enjoy.

1) People have variously said that a globalized economy, the United States, democracy in general, and even cities were against human nature and would never take off. And yet here we are today. Just because world peace hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that humans are biologically incapable of it. You forget that our species can change memetically as well as genetically. Our modes of socialization have undergone considerable expansion and transformation over our history, yet in that same time we haven't changed in any morphologically notable way.

2) It all depends on how you define World Peace. If you say the world is not at peace while there is still local crime, I'd agree this is probably impossible with current human nature. If you say that we will always be at war, though, I disagree. Even without a One World State, International law and notions of common human rights seem to be increasingly enforced and accepted. Violent conflicts will likely trend downwards as areas settle down after the disruption that development brings. If sustainability increases, the probability of world peace increases further.

3) I find it interesting that this thread has considered the implications of far-future technology in one field, yet entirely neglected others. If we assume that cybernetics and such will become economic enough to be so widespread, then it's reasonable to assume too that things like space travel will also likely become more accessible. Even if you don't believe humans can coexist with augmented humans or posthumans, if we can colonize the universe, there will always be a place for any kind of human.
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Bauglir

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #632 on: January 22, 2014, 01:43:11 am »

@LB

Yes, it was a response directly to it, possibly aside from Dunbar's Number as an example brought up in the thread already. Is "humanity" adequately defined in the video? If so, I'll need to take a look at this groundbreaking piece of philosophical masterwork, but otherwise you didn't address the problems I'm having at all.

Again - you haven't convinced me that the people you call "post-humans" are anything but particularly shiny humans with superpowers. You just keep saying they are and pointing out differences, without illustrating why those differences are relevant to qualifying for humanity. And if you do convince me of that, you will have to convince me that you can reasonably extrapolate their behavior from human history, when your entire point is that they'll cease to be human.
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

wierd

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #633 on: January 22, 2014, 01:47:39 am »

Actually, we *are* evolving genetically.

Look at the clustering of autistic spectrum disorder in tech hubs like cuppertino CA. It confers an advantage in the local environment, and many firms are now prefferentially hiring developers with aspergers syndrome.

Are aspies inhuman? No-.  Are they atypical, and the result of genetic changes in the face of selection pressure? Yes.

You don't go from germs to humans overnight. It happens slowly, and gradually. That humans are making progress does not mean I am wrong; it means I am right. Humans are changing, and not staying the same.  Like it or not, current humans won't exist anymore after enough time passes.


Bauglir: by that line of reasoning, humans are just apes with superpowers. Why aren't chimpanzees humans?
« Last Edit: January 22, 2014, 01:52:16 am by wierd »
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Bauglir

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #634 on: January 22, 2014, 01:51:10 am »

"Current" humans went extinct an unimaginably large number of times in the time it took to type this sentence, by that reasoning. It's all about how finely you want to split it - so convince me your arbitrary distinction is correct. I'm all about continua, I just happen to think that we're unquestionably human now and that "humanity" isn't a trait that gets lost further down the line, except in the strictest coherent biological sense (which we can probably agree not to have a definition war over, since it's clearly not what's at issue).
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

wierd

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #635 on: January 22, 2014, 01:57:29 am »

Again, if you are going to hold that line of reasoning, where is the divide between humans, and other currently extant primates?  Humans are apes with superpowers known as speech, and logic.

Or perhaps between humans and leemurs?

Evolution isn't about such things; distinction between species happens when the differences are extreme enough that the populations become distinct enough that they seperate, and stay seperate.

When the kryptonians live in flying cities because kryptonians can fly and humans live on the ground, it isn't all that different from humans living in big megacities while chimpanzees live in trees.

So, would you say a chimpanzee is human? Regardless of answer, why?
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WillowLuman

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #636 on: January 22, 2014, 02:00:43 am »

Actually, we *are* evolving genetically.

Look at the clustering of autistic spectrum disorder in tech hubs like cuppertino CA. It confers an advantage in the local environment, and many firms are now prefferentially hiring developers with aspergers syndrome.

Are aspies inhuman? No-.  Are they atypical, and the result of genetic changes in the face of selection pressure? Yes.

You don't go from germs to humans overnight. It happens slowly, and gradually. That humans are making progress does not mean I am wrong; it means I am right. Humans are changing, and not staying the same.  Like it or not, current humans won't exist anymore after enough time passes.


Bauglir: by that line of reasoning, humans are just apes with superpowers. Why aren't chimpanzees humans?
Yes, and even without selection pressure there's always genetic drift.

But what I'm saying is that the genetic difference between the humans that live in a relatively peaceful world and the humans of today will be far less than even between humans today and those before the industrial revolution.

It's a fact that we change far, far faster culturally than physically. As with technology, the rate of change is exponential in many regards.

Additionally, people don't have to be able to form close relationships with everyone else on Earth to make world peace possible. Just because we can hypothetically maintain only 150 close friends at a time doesn't stop us from forming larger groups numbering from the thousands to the millions and even the billions.
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wierd

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #637 on: January 22, 2014, 02:12:00 am »

Indeed! We form nations in the many millions!

But look under the hood-- domestic strife, class warfare, racism, biggotry.....

They all share a common origin; the coping strategy we employ to deal with the large societal construct.

Stereotype, and group identity.

Lakers fan, or Steeler's fan?

Chiefs or Broncos?

Black or white?

Man or woman?

Rich or poor?

Secular or religious?

We make these divisions, because we cannot cope with the whole, and those divisions are what prevent world peace.

Jesus, or allah?

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alway

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #638 on: January 22, 2014, 02:14:37 am »

On the third point, space travel is actually an interesting topic. Space travel was always one of the biggest reasons for cyborgs to begin with. The term 'cyborg' first came about in the famous Clynes and Kline paper on the feasibility of cyborgs for space travel; essentially to give humans the ability to live and work in space in a nature way, as unconcerned with their basic needs and survival as they would be on earth. Basically, as a way to escape becoming a slave to the life support systems otherwise required of a spaceship. It also dramatically reduces material costs of spacecraft themselves.

Or if you go back even further, you can find the occasional cyborg as space travel solution.
HP Lovecraft's tale The Whisperer in Darkness is a great example of this, all the way in 1930, well before Von Braun even started work on rockets; and one of the earliest uses of the idea of a 'brain in a jar.' In that tale, the alien Mi-Go would surgically remove the brain of an organism, then put it in a preserving, mechanical jar. This jar would then have secondary sensory devices attached to it, allowing the inhabitant to both observe and communicate with the outside world, even in places in which their bodies could not survive. A space cyborg, before either space travel or cyborgs were common concepts. Ironically, it was played for horror.

But the overall problem with space colonization is that it is absurdly expensive because of human needs. Humans, as we are today, simply will not colonize the stars. Without adapting ourselves to other environments, and barring any near-magic technology, it would be an entirely silly proposition for the most part; you need a massive investment of resources simply to live as normal a life as you would on earth. With world population set to likely peak around mid to late century, there really wouldn't be a need to spread out for quality of living reasons. Adding cyborgs to the equation changes all that. Colonizing Mars is much easier when you can simply send down people and some supplies, without the water, oxygen, and temperature that earth-humans require. It rules out the ability to live comfortably on earth, but for a permanent colony, that should be entirely acceptable if it achieves a much higher standard of living. And that, at its core, is the biggest problem with colonization today. You become a slave to the life-support machines; unable to live as fulfilling a life as you otherwise would on earth. Until you can change that with cybernetics, we really aren't going anywhere in more than a token effort.


On the topic of human nature, that's a cop-out. It's saying that things are the way they appear to me to be, and they will thus always be like that. Entirely without justification or reasoning as to why such a sweeping assumption is the case. Most of what we are is influenced by culture; without that, we're not building technology or doing calculus, but rather scrambling through the mud for tasty grubs, seeds, and generally any other object that looks like it may be edible. Culture can make you kind to your enemies and, under the right conditioning, have you murder your friends. So to claim culture can't do things to something related to how we think is a pretty hefty claim in itself, which had better be backed up by some really substantial evidence.

But again, this is coming down to exactly what I said before: coming in with loaded terms like "extinction," to twist terms into planning a funeral for the fact that I will change slightly by the time I wake up tomorrow.
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wierd

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #639 on: January 22, 2014, 02:25:07 am »

"This time tomorrow"


This is precisely why I was trying to frame that it isn't me that will stop being human, unless something highly improbable like kurzweil's singularity happens, and I get cyberized-- but instead from the "Humans have been struggling to get along so long, that they finally adapt to that pressure enough to do it effortlessly".  Eg, more evolutionary time. Not tomorrow.

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WillowLuman

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #640 on: January 22, 2014, 02:42:52 am »

Ninja'd
-snip-

I would disagree that those differences are insurmountable without major physical change of the brain. Education goes a long way to mediating violence. I also believe it's possible for a society to function non-violently, and in a non-dystopian way, despite such differences. For example, though people by nature form prejudices, there are many ideas both recent and older that are able to unify large multitudes. Religion was first, Nationalism came later. Today the protection of basic human rights is an increasingly powerful rallying point to stop violence.

Call me an idealist, but I say look at the measures we've taken in the last 2 centuries to fight prejudice and bigotry. Today, bigotry isn't something you want to admit openly to general society, while just a century ago it was common practice to wear it with pride. Such people are termed extremists or are vocal minorities today. Oh, we've still got problems, but we can solve them without having to change the biology of our brains.

In a much better example of an earlier refutation, your extinction argument is akin to saying the humans alive during the Renaissance or the Industrial Revolution are an extinct transitional species. While you might argue that this is true, most would agree that a species includes more than just 6-10 generations.

But the overall problem with space colonization is that it is absurdly expensive because of human needs. Humans, as we are today, simply will not colonize the stars. Without adapting ourselves to other environments, and barring any near-magic technology, it would be an entirely silly proposition for the most part; you need a massive investment of resources simply to live as normal a life as you would on earth. With world population set to likely peak around mid to late century, there really wouldn't be a need to spread out for quality of living reasons. Adding cyborgs to the equation changes all that. Colonizing Mars is much easier when you can simply send down people and some supplies, without the water, oxygen, and temperature that earth-humans require. It rules out the ability to live comfortably on earth, but for a permanent colony, that should be entirely acceptable if it achieves a much higher standard of living. And that, at its core, is the biggest problem with colonization today. You become a slave to the life-support machines; unable to live as fulfilling a life as you otherwise would on earth. Until you can change that with cybernetics, we really aren't going anywhere in more than a token effort.

You assume that cybernetic technology will advance and become cheaper but "life support" systems won't? In what way are cyborgs not merely an advancement of life support technology? How are cyborgs any less slaves to their life supports just because they've got them in their torsos? How is a human that doesn't need any water or oxygen not "near-magic" level of technology?
« Last Edit: January 22, 2014, 02:47:18 am by HugoLuman »
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LordBucket

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #641 on: January 22, 2014, 02:46:41 am »

you didn't address the problems I'm having at all.

The problem is that you haven't seen the video that the rest of us are talking bout, and you're filling in what you think we're probably talking about with assumptions based on I don't even know what. If you care, go watch the video and then tomorrow you can tell me all about how brains in jars and co-evolved robot/biological nanobot swarms and things are "just humans with shinies glued on."

wierd

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #642 on: January 22, 2014, 02:50:01 am »

That's what I was getting at with he radical rise in aspergers cases in cupertino over.

It happened in ONE generation. The genes were of couse, already there. What wasn't, was the pressure to select for them.

The black death selected for a mutant glycoprotien receptor in europe. It became the norm in the population in less than 100 years. Today that same mutant receptor confers a 90% imunity to HIV. It is one of the reasons why HIV isn't as big an epidemic there as it is in Africa.  People have just as much sex in both places.


Evolution happens faster than you realize. A whole species of extremophile appeared because of the environmental conditions at JPL.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2014, 02:54:44 am by wierd »
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WillowLuman

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #643 on: January 22, 2014, 03:17:41 am »

Yes, but I wouldn't say that the human species today is an entirely seperate one from the humans of the last few millenia. One trait does not an extinction define. A marginal rise in Autism does not signify the end of yesteryear's humanity any more than the appearance of a new "race" when Europeans interbred with Native Americans can be considered the divergence of a new species. Heck, Native Americans were cut off from the rest of the human population for tens of thousands of years but you can hardly consider them to be a separate species.

Also, there's the question of whether the rates for many things are really rising that much, or if cases that would previously have been undiagnosed or misdiagnosed are now being diagnosed properly. And whether some things aren't still misdiagnosed or are being misdiagnosed in new ways is still a matter of debate. Your definition of species is far narrower than what's commonly accepted to constitute a species. The difference of a single or even a few hundred genes are not enough to distinguish a species; that's not even enough to cover individual variation.
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wierd

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Re: Transhumanism Discussion Thread
« Reply #644 on: January 22, 2014, 03:24:23 am »

Hugo:

Again, Neanderthals, early modern humans, homo-heilderburgensis, and likely homo-erectus all also freely interbred. That's what the sequenced denisovan genome tells us.

Some distinct species can interbreed and produce viable offspring. That is not a valid determinator, and is not one I have ever used in this discussion. Implying that I have is a stawman, and I know you're better than that. ;)

What I was driving at, is that eventually the space on the continuum is so great, that you have plants and fungi. Both are on an evolutionary continuum. At some point, the small changes DO add up.
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