[ExI] YES! Hard-core transhumanist splinter groups yearning forcyber-heaven

[Stefano Vaj]

On 17 June 2010 00:49, Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:
> I think it's a serious error to say that. Transhumanism is a philosophy that
> seeks to continually overcome human limits, including mortality and the
> cognitive and emotional limits imposed by the human constitution as it
> naturally evolved. Personally, I think that uploading is feasible in
> principle and I don't have any personal identity based objections to it, but
> it is only one possible path in the future. You can be (and remain) a
> transhumanist if you expect uploading to be impossible or deadly or if it
> turns out not to be feasible.

This is a very good, to-the-point remark.

I am afraid that a confusion still exists between the world
"transhuman" as a description of something which is happening (or,
less optimistically, might be happening), as in the phrase
"transhumanist technologies", and the philosophy "that seeks to
continually overcome human limits", in view of a posthuman change.

The latter cannot be confirmed nor disproved by any technoscientific
development, and organised transhumanism should not be understood as a
fan club for some millennial, inevitable rapture or for the last
hi-tech gadget, but rather as a *cultural and political grassroot
movement* which promotes and supports such philosophy, including of
course all practical, policy measures which are consistent with it,
such as those who might encourage investments in research programmes
or abrogate prohibitionist measures or implement the proactionary
principle.

-- 
Stefano Vaj