[ExI] Otherkin and Plural Systems- How do they fit in your views?

[John Grigg]

Hello Sabrina,

I recall Anders Sandberg (a leading transhumanist intellectual)
mentioning the Otherkin and considering their imaginings being akin to
to the transhumanist desire to physically automorph.  I think advanced
technologies will allow people to actually embrace the legends which
help people cope at a level never before possible.  : )

The "plural systems" you mention were highlighted in the classic
transhumanistic SF novel, "Aristoi."  I think in the western world
such things are currently viewed within a disease modality, but as
nano/info/biotech merge and greatly progress, I see "multiple
minds/personalities" being seen as a great advantage.

Uploads will be able to inhabit various types of physical bodies to
conduct their business within the "real" world.  And when they are not
within one of these avatars, they will live within a cyberspace that
will certainly have it's own unique physical laws and capacities, in
many ways outstripping the mundane universe we now inhabit.

John


On 6/20/10, Sabrina Ballard <sabrina.ballard at allromanceebooks.com> wrote:
>      I recently ran across a phenominon that is self-reported as
> "otherkin" and also "plural systems". Otherkin here means something
> along the line as one subjectively feels as if they are another
> species or race, much in the same way that someone who is
> transgendered feels they were born into a body of the wrong sex. I was
> interested on your take of this phenomenon, if you felt it had a
> bearing on the way that our world view has changes, and perhaps we are
> moving further from 'nature'? Or perhaps we are moving farther from
> ledgends which help people cope?
>
> The second is called "plural systems". These are essentially people
> who have more than one conciousness in the same body. How does this
> effect our view of what concsiousness is and is not? Does it even have
> an effect, in the sense that the medical community, especially in the
> USA and UK feel it is a disease? There feeling that it is a disease
> runs counter to what many of these plural systems feel. That is, that
> they are healthy and funtional members of society.
>
> I find much of these plural systems to be of interest when examining
> what consciousness and personhood are. Some express that multiple
> people can be "front" or controlling what the body does, much like one
> would multitask. Others report being a "gateway system", that when
> they are not "front" they inhabit a world much like our Earth, which
> has its laws of physics, many of them matching our own. That is to
> say, there is no "magic", things do not simply "happen". The no magic
> obviously excluding the body switching.
>
> What are your views, and how does researh into this area effect
> transhumanism? (If at all)
>
> ~Sabrina Ballard
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