[ExI] Limits of human modification

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2015-11-27 02:15, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
> As for postmodernism, that was my problem - I was trying to understand 
> it.  Take away the smoke and mirrors and there's nothing there.  The 
> existentialists strike me much the same way.  Literary theories that I 
> have read are laughable.

I think it is wrong to claim there is *nothing* there but verbiage. When 
I made the same claim as you in regards to Derrida on this list many 
years ago, Damien Broderick kindly demonstrated that the quote I had 
argued was not even wrong actually did have some nontrivial content - 
but it took a professor to dig it out. But I am happy to grant that 90+% 
is just words. The issue is that the rewards are all tied to doing well 
in the social environment of fellow thinkers rather than linked to 
outside applicability or factors. Fields without regular feedback from 
reality will become divorced from it.

Existentialism actually does have some content, but since each major 
existentialist had a rather different point, there is not much overall 
cohesiveness. And for every thinker with something to say, you get ten 
who merely comment on them.


(I have been working on a text today on the concept of hope, and found 
myself skipping between a modern analytic philosopher, Kant, Nietzsche 
and Camus. Very fun. The analytic guy is very clear and dull, doing 
useful but unexciting conceptual analysis. Kant is heavy and IMHO wrong. 
Nietzsche is fun and succinct, makes a grand statement that is 50% a 
relevant insight and 50% wrong at the same time. Camus misunderstands 
Nietzsche for his own purposes and is totally right about the point he 
makes, but does he need that much space to do it? Still, the prose is 
readable. )

(And no, I do not plan to make my text merely a comment on what the 
greats thought. I made up my own taxonomy before checking their 
writings, and I am happy to see that I cover the issue in a nearly 
orthogonal way. )

-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University