[extropy-chat] Human - Posthuman gap (was: Spain has become the third country in Europe to legalise gay marriage)

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Apr 24, 2005 at 11:34:46AM +0100, ben wrote:

> I'm not arguing with your basic premise, but i would argue with the
> above statement. I reckon it's almost certain that there will be a
> *much* bigger gap between (many) posthumans and humans than that between
> birds and humans. I'd be very surprised (and disappointed) if that
> wasn't so.

We are very close to the floor, and the ceiling is very far up, so
radiation/speciation in complexity space indicates the average (of course, number of individua 
and their spatial distribution will vary wildly) critter is way more complex than
us.
 
> In fact, the term 'posthumans' is almost meaningless as a basis for
> comparing stuff like this. It's like saying that 'post-book media' will
> or will not retain property X of books. It would be silly to say that
> 'post-book media' would be closer to books than books are to clay
> tablets, wouldn't it?

I think the idea of the posthuman label is to denote an end to people As We Know Them,
and TEOTWAWKI in general.

For some strange reason, this is still controversial to some transhumanists. 

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