[extropy-chat] Dante and transhumanism

[nvitamore at austin.rr.com]

From: Amara Graps 

Giu1i0 Pri5c0 pgptag at gmail.com :
>So: Should we say Trasumanar or Transumanar (the first is Dante's
>original, the second is also used and definitely sounds better)? Should
>we welcome Dante as one of the founding fathers of transhumanism, in the
>sense of "aspiration to pass beyond humanity"?

"Hmm. Dante is pretty new for tranhumanism thinking.

The transhumanist trail goes back much further, at least two
thousand years prior to Dante, to two papyri composed in Egypt around
the 4th century C.E. called the "Leiden and Stockholm papri" (for the
modern libraries, where they are stored). The papri state that "artificial
is at least as good as the natural for the purpose of humans, perhaps
better.""

"Perhaps you mean specifically the term "transhumanism". I think
it is more useful, however, to follow back in time the _ideas_."

Two points here.  How words are put together and used and reused over time.
The point being in the original post was the term transhumanism and how
coincidental it was that FM was not aware of transhuman being used by
Broderick or Huxley or anyone else who use did.  Same for Max - who used
transhumanism without prior knowledge of it in the literary sphere.  First,
are FM and Max honest?  I believe so.  In fact, utterly so.

Then the issue re wikipedia was the claim that Huxley is the real father of
the philosophy of transhumanism, which I do not agree with and which was
the topic of a conversation here in Sao Paulo.  Did Huxley set out to write
a philosophy?  No. Did Max, yes.

Then where did this word come from which has been used as a ploy to
separate out transhumanism and make claims that transhumanism really came
from Huxley rather than Max.  In order to be clear, it is optimal to trace
the word.  What did Huxley really mean?  Where did he see the term?  Did he
see it before or not.  No one knows and it may not make any difference at
all, but as far as modern history methodology is concerned, it is
interesting.  Did he read Dante and see "transhumanized"  or did he see
"Transumanar"?  Did he read TS Elliot who also used "transhumanized" in
_The Cocktail Party_?  I don't know and one might say, who give a big ___. 
Maybe Max does.  Maybe FM did (which, frankly he did).  Maybe Damien does
not.  That is his choice.  

I am not an historian by any great leap in imagination, but anyone can
realize that words do carry ideas.

Ideas are more difficult to trace without the words.  Perhaps a linguist
can explain this better.  But tracing ideas is very difficult because "new"
ideas are the offshoot of other ideas.  Which brings in originality and
what is original?

I agree with you that it is the idea which carries weight, and maybe more
than the word.  Pictures are influential carriers of ideas as well and cave
paintings give a pretty clear indication of what the cave dwellers were
thinking and doing.


Natasha

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