[ExI] Human Enhancement & Life Extension: Alchemists of the future

[Anders Sandberg]

Alchemy produced a quite large number of useful results during the 
middle ages but really took off and was transformed when it was forced 
into the open by Boyle and the others - as long as it was secretive, 
craftmanlike knowledge it did not develop much of a theory despite 
possibly shared ambitions between different alchemists. The chemists 
turned it into a science, but did sever it from the original ambitions 
(some of which were just mistaken like gold transmutation, others which 
were sensible but too hard, like the elixir of life).

I think one can see a similarity to what happened to nanotechnology when 
it got NNI funding.

The core alchemical ideas of transformation and transmutation are still 
around, it is just that these days we actually are starting to see 
adequate tools for them. Maybe the desires and visions always come 
first, produce a messy area of protoscience (if even that), followed by 
a consolidation period of real science with no place for the visions, 
and finally - if the field is lucky and the visions not too parochial 
for an era - technology that allow people to actually pursue the visions.


-- 
Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford University