[extropy-chat] Transhumanism and non-gender roles

[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Dec 02, 2003 at 03:48:42PM -0800, Adrian Tymes wrote:

> Sorry, but MB is correct.  I specified "control over
> oneself" - as in, the opportunity to not grow old and
> deterioriate, if desired.  That is not illusiory in

We're talking very nicely in othogonal directions to
each other, but it's no problem, as we occasionally
do manage to connect sometimes.

> the same sense as "control" over other sentient
> beings.

It would be a very good thing to have control over
our physical layer. What I'm objecting is a belief
of having a control over your own mind by equivalent
of waving a dead chicken (Freud, Jung & Co). I have
similiar scathing opinion of AI people who think
philosophy and introspection will result in actual
application leads. 

More specifically, realization that you can't control
everything is liberating to the borderline
obsessive-compulsive amongst us, and can lead to
actual increase in control. It's the equivalent of
attemting to micromanage your life.
 
> You are correct in what you did say: people who
> currently have withered bodies, or who believe that
> the only path to old age is to wither, might not want
> to live forever given what they think it must mean.

We've donned our Ministry of Propaganda hat here, 
I presume.

> But that is not what we are discussing.  We are
> discussing the ability to live forever in relatively

Forever is a bit misleading. According to this week's
version of physics, nothing is eternal. In a Darwinian
scenario there's always a nonzero probability that you'll
become a loser in the next round, though a tiny fraction
of original individuals will have extremely long time
spans. 

> good health.  (Frankly, it might be technically more
> difficult to achieve immortality in a withered shell
> than in a perpetually healthy shell, even if there
> was not the desirability issue.  Were I to wither at
> current rates, yet survive to 100, I might seriously
> contemplate whether cryonic suspension might give me a
> better chance of seeing the far future than continued
> life.)

You of course realize that the vast majority of people
in the industrialized countries die demented. Not much
left to suspend there, alas.

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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