<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><DIV><BR>>...I always have considered transhumanism to be sophisticated, keening intelligent, great sense of humor, deeply caring about humanity and awake. Certainly there are some transhumanists who are difficult or naïve, or who wear "H+" without understanding its values, but for me it is home...I shine and so do you...Natasha</DIV>
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<DIV>Well said, Natasha thanks. I agree. The central point of transhumanism is the notion that it is physically possible to upload sentience into another substrate. I sure cannot figure out why not. We know that there are plenty of examples in nature of a form of sentience in beasts, behaviors that demonstrate natural evolved intelligence, even if not exactly analogous to human thought. We have seen videos of ants being attacked by predators for instance, and demonstrating what looks to me exactly like human fear, all taking place in a central nervous system that could scarcely be called analogous to a mammalian brain.</DIV>
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<DIV><A href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiJgsPUYahs">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiJgsPUYahs</A></DIV>
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<DIV>The ant's brain is an object that most of us would agree could in theory be simulated on a computer, and if so, why not a grasshopper's brain, and if that, why not a mouse brain, etc. Those who say in principle humans cannot upload sound too much like the well-meaning armchair philosophers who argued in 1900 that humans can never go to the moon.</DIV>
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<DIV>I recognize that there are identity paradoxes, old questions to which I see no progress being made or having been made ever, but regardless of that we forge on toward the goal of uploading, for we know all too well the alternative.</DIV>
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<DIV>spike</DIV>
<DIV><BR><BR>--- On <B>Wed, 6/16/10, natasha@natasha.cc <I><natasha@natasha.cc></I></B> wrote:<BR></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px"><BR>From: natasha@natasha.cc <natasha@natasha.cc><BR>Subject: Re: [ExI] YES! Hard-core transhumanist splinter groups yearning for cyber-heaven<BR>To: extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<BR>Date: Wednesday, June 16, 2010, 1:36 PM<BR><BR>
<DIV class=plainMail>I must have been born with a confidence gene because I never considered myself as part of a fringe, or what one speaker at the Humanity+ Summit called freaks weird, or what RU Sirius dismissed as not being hip like the cyberpunk folks, or what anti-transhumanists like Mark Gubrub or Dale Carrico write, of even some of Mike Treder’s strange comments.<BR><BR>I always have considered transhumanism to be sophisticated, keening intelligent, great sense of humor, deeply caring about humanity and awake. Certainly there are some transhumanists who are difficult or naïve, or who wear "H+" without understanding its values, but for me it is home.<BR><BR>I shine and so do you.<BR><BR>Natasha<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>Quoting Holly Gray <<A href="http://us.mc815.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=animeotaku@btinternet.com" ymailto="mailto:animeotaku@btinternet.com">animeotaku@btinternet.com</A>>:<BR><BR>> I find myself wishing that we
could, but, in the current democracy, we need some form of shiny front organization or we'll be relegated to being the lunatic fringe that quite a bit of the public still see us as.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> ----- Original Message ----<BR>> From: Giulio Prisco <<A href="http://us.mc815.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=giulio@gmail.com" ymailto="mailto:giulio@gmail.com">giulio@gmail.com</A>><BR>> To: ExI chat list <<A href="http://us.mc815.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" ymailto="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</A>><BR>> Sent: Wednesday, 16 June, 2010 10:29:40<BR>> Subject: Re: [ExI] YES! Hard-core transhumanist splinter groups yearning for cyber-heaven<BR>> <BR>> Let's have one, figurative or not. Let's form a real transhumanist org<BR>> pushing for real transhumanist outcomes. Too bad the Extropy Institute<BR>> was
closed.<BR>> <BR>> On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:20 AM, AlgaeNymph <<A href="http://us.mc815.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=algaenymph@gmail.com" ymailto="mailto:algaenymph@gmail.com">algaenymph@gmail.com</A>> wrote:<BR>>> Giulio Prisco wrote:<BR>>>> <BR>>>> FYC: Some comments to an anti-transhumanist, anti-uploading rant on<BR>>>> the New Atlantis blog, and a call to arms.<BR>>>> <BR>>> <BR>>> Why don't we ever have a (figurative) call to arms?<BR>>> _______________________________________________<BR>>> extropy-chat mailing list<BR>>> <A href="http://us.mc815.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" ymailto="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</A><BR>>> <A href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat" target=_blank>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</A><BR>>>
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