[extropy-chat] Article on transhumanism on the leading Italian weekly magazine Panorama

[Alfio Puglisi]

On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Damien Broderick wrote:

>Okay, but what I'm wondering is *what* they mean by `uploading the mind',
>and why they disapprove? Is the `Yuck' factor--`Oh, how creepy, a brain in
>a vat!'

Yes. Please note that Panorama (="landscape") is a popular weekly
magazine, not really going deep into subjects. Uploading is mentioned very
quickly at the end of the article. Quick translation:

<begin translation, style="quick, dirty and probably very badly done">

...[transhumanists] seek to achieve "superintelligence". That would be
done also thanks to "uploading", which is "the transfer of a mind from a
biological brain to a computer". An uploaded person, transhumanist
documents say, could live in a virtual reality.

So, it's like a Philip Dick story. The future view is one of cyborgs and
robot men. We can ignore the crys of Fukuyama, considering it science
fiction. But when someone will knock to your door to sell mind uploading,
don't say that we did not warn you.

<end translation>

The general tone of the article is quite on the negative. It starts
quoting a lot Fukuyama, then some replies from J. Hughes, N. Bostrom and
some not better identified "documents". The focus is entirely on physical
augmentation - living longer or forever, being beautiful, being
superintelligent.

Alfio