[ExI] The denial of death, transhumanism, and the abolition of embodiment

[Henry Rivera]

My thoughts on this topic from what I remember about this book: Immortality
is the solution to the conflict around our mortality identified by Becker.
As such, all the psychopathology that he suggests is related to this
conflict will be eliminated with immortality. Regarding the Freudian stages
of development, I see these largely as an artifact of our, what has turned
out to be, adaptive ability to relate to one another cooperatively combined
with our drive for sexual reproduction. This is also connected to sexual
competition. When one removes mortality and the need to reproduce sexually
from our spices, I imagine we will cease to see stages or issues of
development that resemble Freud's conceptualization. I suggest those
proposed Freudian dynamics exist because they conferred adaptive value or
they were baggage that came with adaptive behavior related to reproduction
and cooperation. With immortality and no need for sexual reproduction as we
currently do it, these dynamics will become extinct.

All this of course assumes that Freud's conceptualization is valid. My
opinion is that there is probably only partial validity in Freudianism and
all of the offshoots of his psychosexual ideas on development.

-Henry
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