polskieserce Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 There is a new intellectual movement out there which aims to change humans through genetic engineering and cybernetic enhancements. When I read the wikipedia article about this 2 years ago and did some research, it seems like this is the next bad idea after communism, abortion, and out of control resource consumption. What do you think? Will this be some minor fringe movement that gets barely any attention or will it be another great dividing issue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arfink Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 I really don't know how it's that different than what we have now, other than being somewhat different from a technological standpoint. Humans have always been very good at denying who they are, who they were made by, and Him whom they are meant to be united with. It's our ancestral sin. All of us do it at some point or another. Transhumanism would just be another iteration of the not-terribly-new idea that we are somehow not what we actually are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polskieserce Posted June 6, 2014 Author Share Posted June 6, 2014 I really don't know how it's that different than what we have now, other than being somewhat different from a technological standpoint. Humans have always been very good at denying who they are, who they were made by, and Him whom they are meant to be united with. It's our ancestral sin. All of us do it at some point or another. Transhumanism would just be another iteration of the not-terribly-new idea that we are somehow not what we actually are. Transhumanism would be going much further because it would essentially involve people playing god, turning certain members of the human species into something else, having sexless reproduction, etc. If it gets traction, it could get to the point where employers require employees to have certain cybernetic/genetic intellectual enhancements to be considered for a job. People would basically have to decide between leaving the species or becoming the modernized version of the amish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arfink Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 Transhumanism would be going much further because it would essentially involve people playing god, turning certain members of the human species into something else, having sexless reproduction, etc. If it gets traction, it could get to the point where employers require employees to have certain cybernetic/genetic intellectual enhancements to be considered for a job. People would basically have to decide between leaving the species or becoming the modernized version of the amish. Not really. People play god already. Sex selective abortions, in-vitro fertilization. Revenge, murder, war. Engineering new ways to kill and maim. That said, the soul coupled with a physical body is what makes us human. Our "species" is not so fragile that a man who has had his body modified is no longer human. How far does one have to go to cease being human? I am prepared to speculate that once conceived, a human cannot become something other than human, no matter what is done to him, or he does to himself. Man cannot fundamentally change his nature, though he may rail against it. Anything the transhumanists do, no matter how horrifying, would not make them un-human. Even in death, the human soul is conserved. They can say it all they want, but all the transhumanists are doing is pretending that what amounts to an advanced whole-body prosthesis is somehow going to make them something other than an ordinary human. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthfinder Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 Doesn't transhumanism wish to essentially end death - seeing dying as the enemy of human lives? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polskieserce Posted June 6, 2014 Author Share Posted June 6, 2014 Doesn't transhumanism wish to essentially end death - seeing dying as the enemy of human lives? That is one of the goals. Another goal is to "improve the human condition". Essentially they want to come up with solutions for all perceived human shortcomings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 Broadly speaking, there are some issues that are considered part of 'transhumanism' that I do not consider morally problematic. At the same time, I personally have found it difficult to draw a logical distinction between the aspects I find relatively uncontroversial, and the extremes of the ideology that my prima facie reaction is to characterize as immoral. For instance, we tend to find nothing wrong with using technology to cure diseases, assuming the technology on its own is not morally wrong. But a lot of us might be uncomfortable with the concept of radical life extension through drugs or other technologies. I find differences in degree, but I have trouble finding major differences in the fundamentals. That causes me to question whether or not this is one of those technological issues that looks from our perspective to be enormously presumptuous as a species, but might be accepted as perfectly uncontroversial in 100-200 years. I have very mixed feelings on the whole topic. Essentially a gut reaction against the ideology, but logically I have found my gut reaction to be based largely on shaky ground. My solution right now is to reserve judgement, and assess specific developments as they present themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arfink Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 Broadly speaking, there are some issues that are considered part of 'transhumanism' that I do not consider morally problematic. At the same time, I personally have found it difficult to draw a logical distinction between the aspects I find relatively uncontroversial, and the extremes of the ideology that my prima facie reaction is to characterize as immoral. For instance, we tend to find nothing wrong with using technology to cure diseases, assuming the technology on its own is not morally wrong. But a lot of us might be uncomfortable with the concept of radical life extension through drugs or other technologies. I find differences in degree, but I have trouble finding major differences in the fundamentals. That causes me to question whether or not this is one of those technological issues that looks from our perspective to be enormously presumptuous as a species, but might be accepted as perfectly uncontroversial in 100-200 years. I have very mixed feelings on the whole topic. Essentially a gut reaction against the ideology, but logically I have found my gut reaction to be based largely on shaky ground. My solution right now is to reserve judgement, and assess specific developments as they present themselves. Yeah, I had pondered that longevity of life thing before. I personally believe it would be very inconvenient to live for, say, 200 years, but I don't know why, if the technology became common and normative in medical circles, that we couldn't use it. Already the average human life span in the US is close to double what it was even a century ago, and we don't even blink at this. Cybernetics will just provide a full body prosthesis. We accept prosthesis now. Now, what would be morally problematic, imo, would be the intentional mutilation of your body in order to have a prosthetic, that to me seems like it would be morally problematic. That said, we do frequently use technological devices to improve bodily functions. I wear glasses. People have false teeth. All designed to shore up and support the human body in spite of its defects. But I think the key thing to notice there is that these are in response to existing defects. I wouldn't consider "possibility of death after 80 years" to be a defect. It's more of a feature. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 The defect versus enhancement is an interesting angle to be explored. Obviously fixing defects is moral, all things being equal. But a bit of reflection indicates that straight enhancement is at least not always immoral. For instance, the use of caffeine as a stimulant. Would it be wrong to implant a small chip in your brain, assuming the procedure is safe and there are no dangerous side effects, that would increase your mathematical ability, or your speaking ability? What about some small machine that would allow your heart to function more effectively? Some people are uncomfortable with those, but it is not clear to me that it would be wrong. Mutilation is an important aspect. I am entirely willing to agree that intentionally removing healthy body parts in order to accommodate enhancements would be wrong. But if it is simply a matter of adding enhancements to healthy bodies... Tough one, for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightofChrist Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 Nothing to be worried over guys, the killer robots will destroy the human race before it has the chance to become 'transhuman'. This has all happened before, it will all happen again. [attachment=3277:cylonanime01.gif] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 Nothing to be worried over guys, the killer robots will destroy the human race before it has the chance to become 'transhuman'. This has all happened before, it will all happen again. cylonanime01.gif Whoa. I must have missed that chapter in my history book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benedictus Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 I think it would happen slowly. Not sure they'd really be a massive upstep all at once to cause a moral divide. The first advances are likely to be medical or health related. I doubt many people will reject these if they will give them a reasonable or improved quality of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Credo in Deum Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 I'm sure we will see it on Facebook's massive list of genders to choose from, sometime soon in the near future. Agender Androgyne Androgynous Bigender Cis Cisgender Cis Female Cis Male Cis Man Cis Woman Cisgender Female Cisgender Male Cisgender Man Cisgender Woman Female to Male FTM Gender Fluid Gender Nonconforming Gender Questioning Gender Variant Genderqueer Intersex Male to Female MTF Neither Neutrois Non-Binary Other Pangender Trans Trans* Trans Female Trans* Female Trans Male Trans* Male Trans Man Trans* Man Trans Person Trans* Person Trans Woman Trans* Woman Transfeminine Transgender Transgender Female Transgender Male Transgender Man Transgender Person Transgender Woman Transmasculine Transsexual Transsexual Female Transsexual Male Transsexual Man Transsexual Person Transsexual Woman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benedictus Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 That's hardly new Credo, not that they have anything to do with transhumanism per se. Facebook wasn't exactly a trend setter on those category points. If anything they were late. I think I studied those terms when I was about twelve or thirteen at school. That's over twenty years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Credo in Deum Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 I'm sorry, the post was not meant to be taken seriously. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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