[extropy-chat] SURVIVAL: An impulse behind transhumanism?

[Natasha Vita-More]

At 12:58 AM 6/30/2006, Brandon wrote:
> > Someone asked me recently what the impulse behind transhumanism was.  I 
> said survival.
>
>Transhumanists seek not just to survive, but to transcend and to become 
>something more than merely human.

Yes, although I am looking at the "impulse" that motivates the 
desires.  Improving the human condition is what transhumanism is actively 
seeking to accomplish.  Why if it is not driven by the impulse to survive?

>  The singular phrasing of the question as "what is the" impulse is 
> limiting. Movements generally have many impulses.

Certainly.

>To become movements there has to be something that speaks to a multitude 
>of people from varying backgrounds. Transhumanism is derived from several 
>impulses. I have no idea exactly what these impulses are, but here are a 
>few possibilities:
>
>-          Epic Curiosity. The desire to know more about the universe and 
>the self. To reason out the hows and whys of reality. Epic Curiosity is 
>not purely analytical; it is also artistic and vibrant. This impulse seems 
>to me to be fundamental to any human who is at some basic level of 
>education and need-fulfillment.
>-          Rational Truth. Transhumanists are possessed of a desire to 
>seek total rational truth. Truth that begins as conjecture and is tested 
>as theory. Truth that is subject to revision should new evidence come to light.
>-          Ethical Hedonism. We want to survive because we like life. We 
>like the trappings and sensations of living. We want to explore the 
>complete potential of experience, but do so in a way that allows us to 
>reset the system and try again in other directions. We do not hope to 
>merely survive forever, but to survive on our personal eudaimonic terms. 
>We want to extend our ability to live beyond its biological limitations 
>not just so we can continue living, but so we can live broader, bolder, 
>enriched lives. We want our cake and we want to eat it, too. At the same 
>time, transhumanists recognize the ethical limitations of personal desire 
>and the social objective of establishing a posthuman community.
>-          Intellectual Empathy. Many transhumanists can make themselves 
>feel pretty horrible thinking about all sorts of things that other people 
>simply don't think about. We understand the immense and catastrophic 
>information loss each time someone dies. We conjecture, in a sort of 
>physicalist way, that death as a systemic process is probably avoidable. 
>Moreover, we understand that to not make an effort to find out for sure if 
>death is curable, we condemn our society to continued catastrophic 
>information loss. We feel an emotional response to this. This is the 
>transhuman social imperative.
>
>I'm sure there are other things that could be classified as types of 
>impulses. I don't think survival is enough. Just wanting to survive 
>wouldn't necessarily lead to transhumanism. It's one thing to want to 
>survive, it's another thing to be perfectly willing to survive in a 
>non-biological substrate and to not discard that scenario out of hand as 
>impossible.

We could find a bevy of impulses to be sure.

>Transhumanism is maybe a kind of radical supercharged survivalism and it's 
>all of these other impulses that push it beyond just wanting to stay alive.

Well said Brandon.

Natasha

<http://www.natasha.cc/>Natasha <http://www.natasha.cc/>Vita-More
Cultural Strategist - Designer
President, <http://www.extropy.org/>Extropy Institute
Member, <http://www.profuturists.com/>Association of Professional Futurists
Founder, <http://www.transhumanist.biz/>Transhumanist Arts & Culture

If you draw a circle in the sand and study only what's inside the circle, 
then that is a closed-system perspective. If you study what is inside the 
circle and everything outside the circle, then that is an open system 
perspective. - Buckminster Fuller


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