|
A peer-reviewed
electronic journal published by the Institute
for Ethics and ISSN
1541-0099 19(1)
– September 2008 |
Better Living
through Transhumanism
George Dvorsky
Journal of Evolution and Technology -
Vol. 19 Issue 1 – September 2008 - pgs 62-66
http://jetpress.org/v19/dvorsky.htm
Abstract
A growing number
of people are turning to transhumanism, which aims to promote and encourage
human enhancement through the application of science and technology. They
maintain that this is a good thing, and that we should encourage and work
towards the attainment of a posthuman condition. Not ones to dwell on the
future while passively waiting for it to happen, trashumanists engage in
foresight, activist and promotional activities. Just as significantly, the
day-to-day lifestyle choices of transhumanists reflect anticipated change.
Transhumanism is in many respects a burgeoning lifestyle choice and cultural
phenomenon.
More
than just a philosophy and social movement, transhumanism is for many a way of
life. Some experts believe that all genetic-based diseases will be eliminated
by 2030. The widespread application of genetic and other technologies, it is
thought, may also result in significant increases to human intelligence,
memory, physical health and strength. Some expect the achievement of indefinite
lifespans this century and believe that immortals already walk among us.
Researchers suspect that the
development of strong nanotechnology in the coming decades will result in
molecular assemblers that effectively function like Star Trek replicators. A
number of experts are hopeful that medical nanotechnology will be used to
revive those who are preserved in cryonic stasis. It is also suspected that
advances in both nanotechnology and robotics will greatly alter the current
socioeconomic infrastructure, potentially resulting in such things as massive
unemployment, the need for a basic guaranteed income, and the general
rethinking of how people should coordinate their activities and leisure time.
Steady advances in computing
processing power are leading many experts to conclude that human-equivalent
artificial intelligence may be attainable by the year 2040, if not sooner.
After that, as intelligent machines continue to redesign themselves and
recursively improve, they will likely develop into superintelligences, with
cognitive capacities thousands of times greater than that of humans. No one
knows what this will mean to humanity, causing futurists to dub the
hypothesized event the “technological singularity,” or simply the Singularity.
These predictions are
nontrivial to say the least. Of course, they are just predictions, and most
casual observers maintain that these things will never come – or at least not
within their lifetime. Futurists such as myself tend to be less skeptical,
recognizing the remarkable upward trends in technological research and
development; things are set to change quite dramatically and quite quickly.
In consideration of these
predictions, a growing number of people are turning to transhumanism, which
aims to promote and encourage human enhancement through the application of
science and technology. They maintain that this is a good thing, and that we
should encourage and work towards the attainment of a posthuman condition.
While many – including me –
have written often about transhumanism, few have elaborated on how the
transhumanist mindset has an impact on how people live their life in the
present. Not ones to dwell on the future while passively waiting for it to
happen, transhumanists engage in foresight, activist and promotional
activities.
Just as significantly, the
day-to-day lifestyle choices of transhumanists such as me reflect anticipated
change. I am in my early 30s, which means that barring some unfortunate
accident (with no cryonic or other backup plan) I'll be around to witness,
participate and take advantage of future radical developments. Consequently,
everything from my ethical and moral foundations to my eating and exercising
habits is in some way influenced by how I think the next 50 years will go. And
I am hardly alone. Transhumanism is in many respects a burgeoning lifestyle
choice and cultural phenomenon.
Transhuman
spirituality and ethics
Without unforeseen
conceptual or political impediments to scientific and technological progress,
or some kind of manmade or natural catastrophe, some if not all of the
predictions I listed above are likely to come to fruition this century,
possibly even during the next 50 years. For society in general, this will
represent a mixed blessing at best. People who cling to dated, comforting and
static worldviews, including those who suffer from scientific illiteracy, are
heading for serious bouts of future shock. Cyborgs, transgenic human-animal
hybrids, sentient machines and uploaded consciousnesses can do that.
To be fair, some of the more
radical notions and predictions even make me squirm in my seat. To help me deal
with future shock, and to objectively assess the changes that humanity is about
to undergo, I often rely on some good ol' fashioned Buddhism to help me
through.
I was a Buddhist before I
became a transhumanist, but the two idea-sets proved to be surprisingly
compatible. In fact, many transhumanists describe their “spiritual” or moral
beliefs as having Eastern and Buddhist influences. Personally, Buddhism works
for me on a number of levels, including its humanism, compassionate tenets, and
its denial of God and the soul, or the self.
I am also partial to how
Buddhists encourage progress and the cultural harmonization of the observations
of Western science. Like the humanists of the Enlightenment, Buddhists tend to
see science and progress as a way to better comprehend reality and as a means
to reduce suffering. Buddhists see no hubris with scientific research. The
Universe and all that is in it is not something to be fought and resisted, nor
should its components be divided into the sacred and the profane, the natural
and the unnatural. Einstein, who may have been a Buddhist himself, once
asserted that Buddhism is the future of religion, and acknowledged that, “The
most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible.”
The Dalai Lama himself has
openly stated that Buddhist goals are “the same as those of Western
science," to “serve humanity and to make better human beings.” The Dalai
Lama has also gone on record as saying that he believes an artificial
consciousness is attainable and should be treated and respected as a person.
Buddhism, unlike many other religions or philosophies, reject “yuck factor”
ethics, abstractions and romantic divinations in favor of rational, pragmatic
and empathetic considerations. It's no coincidence, therefore, that so many
Buddhists subscribe to personhood ethics.
Transhumanists can certainly
relate. Most have put their trust in science, and have no trouble imagining
themselves as nonbiological or transgenic posthuman organisms. Moreover,
transhumanists tend to recognize the medical potential for future technologies
and how they can and should be applied to reduce diseases and disabilities and
to create “better humans.” And more radically, transhumanists such as me look
to science and technology as a possible means for the creation of a
Nirvana-esque and quasi-utopian future – or at the very least, as a means for
perpetual progress.
Live
long and prosper
I became a vegetarian last
year and, once again, as a transhumanist I am by no means unique in this respect.
I was a very unlikely candidate for this type of change, as I used to eat meat
at nearly every meal. But a number of factors conspired to lead me to this
change. Obviously, the Buddhist respect for sentient life played a significant
part. Combined with recent advances in the cognitive sciences, it became
obvious to me that many of the nonhuman animals that landed with great
regularity on my dinner plate were once intelligent and conscious creatures.
Moreover, I realized that it was unnecessary for my survival or health that
animals should continue to die for my benefit.
I also became a vegetarian
for health and longevity reasons. Even conservative predictions suggest that
the goal of negligible senescence will be achieved at the turn of the next century,
meaning that I would have to live to 130 years of age – not outrageous if you
consider the advancements that are sure to come in genetics, biogerontology,
cybernetics and nanotechnology. Thus, being in my 30s, I realized that if I
were to reap the benefits of future life extension technologies, including the
radical possibility of attaining an indefinite lifespan, I was putting those
possibilities at risk by clogging my arteries with animal fat and filling my
brain with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and not reaping the benefits of
antioxidants and raw foods. And true to transhumanist principles, the
conversion to vegetarianism (or any other life change) can be interpreted as an
expression of ongoing personal evolution and the continual challenge to improve
one's moral, intellectual and physical condition. Complacency is not a word in
the transhumanist vocabulary.
When it comes to
life-extending eating habits, however, there are some transhumanists who make
me look like a kid after Halloween. Many immortalists practice caloric
restriction, for example, which experiments have shown retards the aging
process in every animal tested so far. Some immortalists carefully manage their
diet, including vitamins and supplements, and even test their blood to help guide
their dietary and pharmaceutical choices. Many transhumanists believe that such
short-term pains will be surely outweighed by long-term gains.
Applying
unconventional technologies and techniques
The idea of fooling the
body's natural processes, through such things as caloric restriction, is
referred to in some circles as “biohacking.” Transhumanists recognize that
their bodies are a kind of machine – one that can be studied, understood and
subjected to hacks. A recent article by Katharine Mieszkowski on Salon,
“Hackers on Atkins,” showed how a number of dieters are “cheating” by going on
the low carbohydrate, high protein and unintuitive Atkins diet. As Mieszkowski
says, the Atkins diet is a “a sneaky algorithm for getting the body to do what
you want it to do, a way of reprogramming yourself. Programmers, who are used
to making their computers serve their will, are now finding that low-carb diets
enable the same kind of control over their bodies.”
Similarly, although not
considered technology by most, I consider yoga and meditation to be types of
“software enhancements” that, when applied, strengthen both the body and mind.
Yoga, aside from being extremely enjoyable, offers numerous physiological and
psychological benefits, including increases to strength, endurance, balance and
somatic and kinesthetic awareness. Yoga, of which I practice Hatha, also
improves mood, reduces feelings of hostility, depression and anxiety, and
increases feelings of self-acceptance and self-actualization.
Meditation is another
powerful technique, one that not only calms the body and mind, but also
improves mood and clarity of thought. It also contributes to greater cognitive
awareness and happiness. Meditation helps me to better regulate my thoughts and
emotions and to better understand how it is that certain ideas, feelings and
motives enter into my conscious thoughts and how I can better process and act
on that information. I often think of my meditation, which is derived from the
Theravadan Vipassana tradition, as memetic Vipassana meditation, as it helps me
better manage the competing memes that often cloud and influence my thoughts
and perception.
Applying
hi-tech to daily living
Needless to say,
transhumanists also apply the latest technologies to their daily lives to both
overcome biological limitations and to enhance individual performance and
efficiency. I tend to take a Zen transhumanist approach to computer use, and I
am never satisfied with my work processes. I am constantly striving to improve
and refine my work habits to come up with quicker and more effective ways of
working.
For example, I memorize
patterns of keyboard shortcuts to increase my efficiency when working on
mundane or repetitive tasks. I don't go anywhere without my handheld PDA, which
acts as my memory and math skills prosthesis, an on-demand dictionary and
thesaurus, and as a task scheduler. I use group collaboration tools to help me
with my work and I visit personal networking sites to help me meet and
communicate with people with similar interests. I know of some transhumanists
who carry around small recording devices to supplement their memories,
constantly recording conversations and other audible events.
As a contributor to the
transhumanist blogosphere, I have to find lots of information fast, and because
of my busy schedule, time is often of the essence. To help me find news items,
I use the Mozilla Web browser's multiple tabs and group bookmarks
functionality; when scouring the Web for information, I refer to about six
different sets of preconfigured and specialized bookmark groups that contain as
many as 15 Websites each. I also use the Google News Alerts feature so that the
news comes to me.
Speaking of Mozilla, like
many transhumanists, I am also interested in the open source movement; it not
only represents a new and innovative way of developing new technologies from a
bottom-up and user-perspective, but also may come to represent an important
change in the development, economy and dissemination of new technologies. At
the same time, I consciously avoid certain technologies, namely television and
video games. While I recognize the entertainment and (sometimes) educational
value of these mediums, they are the soma of our times, representing drug-like
distractions from my goals, contributing to passivity rather than activity.
Better
at assessing change and progress
Transhumanists tend to look
at the world through linear-colored glasses. News items are almost exclusively
evaluated based upon their short and long-term impact on the human condition.
As a result, most transhumanists consider the daily headlines put out by the
major media outlets to be trivial and uninteresting at best. For example, a new
item about the latest efforts to expand the lifespan of a nematode worm to the
equivalent of 500 human years will reach the back pages of most news
publications, but it's the kind of news that tops the lists in transhumanist
circles. The same goes for debates about research on stem cells, human cloning,
genetics, bodily autonomy issues, the state of health care and artificial
intelligence. This is the stuff, transhumanists maintain, that really matters.
Consequently,
transhumanists, through their worldviews and lifestyle choices, and through
their ability to deal with and better understand the changes on the horizon,
are putting themselves in a better position than most to anticipate and apply
the coming technologies to their lives and their bodies; they are inoculating
themselves against future shock. Transhumanists hope that future advancements will
work to the benefit of humanity, and that missing out on this potential, either
because of sweeping bans or preventable catastrophes, would be a travesty.
Thus, a significant part of the transhumanist agenda involves getting the word
out.
The more people are brought
into these discussions the better. It is vital that the high degree of
knee-jerk and reactionary opinion that dominates discussions of posthumanity be
reduced as much in possible in favor of rational, informed and realistic
discussions. By having these issues and debates enter into the popular
zeitgeist, we collectively stand a better chance of avoiding the stresses and
confusions sure to be posed by coming waves of radical change.
(First published in
www.betterhumans.org).