[ExI] Question from a neophyte

[natasha at natasha.cc]

I'm not sure why you would chose Moravec as an entry point. It would  
not be my choice at all.  Transhumanism is not about robots and bush  
people.  Transhumanism is a philosophical worldview.  If you lens is  
robotics, again, I would not single out Moravec, but engage a  
collection of sciences and technologies through which the  
transhumanist goal or future could be or has the potential of being  
established.

And I agree with you about the Western narrative, by I do not agree  
that it is a bad thing.  Body transcendence is not the aim of  
transhumanism - whether a body is used or not is NOT the point!   
Uploading is not the GOAL of transhumanism!

This is why transhumanism gets a bad rap.  I oppose Moravec's  
particular vision, no matter how imaginative it is.  We will not forgo  
the biological body for no body, but transform the biological body for  
semi and non-biological bodies in real time and in synthetic  
environments.

To assume Moravec's vision of uploads (by the way a more contemporary  
phrase for transferring the brain's content to an artificial system is  
"whole brain emulation"), is the entry point and the ground rule of  
transhumanism is simply not correct.

Natasha


Quoting Sarah Wood <wood.sarah.m at gmail.com>:

> Having chosen Moravec as an entry point, my first impression is that
> he is to a large extent simply reproducing an entrenched Western
> narrative about body transcendence & mortification, albeit secularized
> and couched in languages of efficiency or functionality.
>
> Thoughts?