[ExI] Uploading Swindle (was Re: Finally!)

[Stefano Vaj]

On 13 May 2012 17:52, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> There is also something transhumanly interesting in the question itself:
> is there a sharp distinction, some important threshold, between animals and
> humans, or is it just that humans have more of some faculties than other
> species?
>

My tentative answer, which is obviously influenced by a both
"anti-egalitarian" and "anti-specieist" worldview,  is:
i) of course humans are absolutely peculiar;
ii) but exactly in the same sense where a a dog is not a chimp, let alone
an octopus;
iii and most if not all human features can be unsurprisingly approximated
the closer a given species is to our own in the evolutionary tree (and,
more surprisingly, by species which are relatively far from our branch, but
see in natural history the times eyes or wings have been independently
invented).

One relevant issue, however, is that we do find ourselves relatively
"insulated" in such continuous by the fact that all other species of the
genus Homo are by now extinct - were australopiteci or Neanderthals still
roaming the earth, or when we succeed in resurrecting their species, this
optical illusion could be weakened.


> And I'll quote:
>
> "We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment
> properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever
> gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and
> possess through your own judgement and decision. The nature of all other
> creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down;
> you, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free
> will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the
> lineaments of your own nature. I have placed you at the very center of the
> world, so that from that vantage point you may with greater ease glance
> round about you on all that the world contains.
>
> We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal
> nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your
> own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your
> power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able,
> through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life
> is divine."
>

"Nietzsche is the first thinker, who, in view of the world history emerging
for the first time, ask the decisive question and thinks through its
metaphysical implications. The question is: Is man, as man in his nature
‘til now, prepared to assume dominion over the whole earth? If not, what
must happen to man as he is so that he may be able to 'subject' the earth
and thereby fulfill the world of an old testament? Must man, as he is,
then, not be brought beyond himself if he is to fulfill this task? […] One
thing, however, we ought soon to notice: this thinking that aims at the
figure of a teacher who will teach the Superman concerns us, concerns
Europe, concerns the whole Earth – not just today, but tomorrow even more.
It does so whether we accept it or oppose it, ignore it or imitate it in a
false accent.” :-)

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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