[ExI] The meaning of life (in transhumanism)

[Robin D Hanson]

I understand "the meaning of my life" as story of my life framed in terms of ideals.
A life story where ideals are embodied and achieved is more meaningful. 
Since there are many ideals, there can be many life meanings.

For me that meaning is "to find and tell key facts". That requires a fair bit of smarts, 
effort, and toughness, which can be promoted by culture and institutions. 
So better culture and institutions will help, and I look forward to a future that has them.
But it doesn't really require much direct enhancement of individuals, other than via
the usual cultural plasticity by which humans have been enhancing themselves for 
many millennia. 

On Feb 18, 2014, at 2:57 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote:
> The question "what's the meaning of life?" assumes that there is a
> unique answer valid for everyone. But I don't think there is one. It's
> up to everyone to give meaning to their life.
> 
> I find meaning in being a small part of something very big - humanity
> on its way to become a cosmic civilization that will achieve the
> dreams of Fedorov and Tipler, mentioned by Anders.
> 
> On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 12:14 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
>> A while ago I started working on an essay called "the meaning of life in
>> transhumanism", but quite soon I got distracted (Oh! Shiny!) and it
>> languished. Then I got an offer to turn it into a book chapter, and it is
>> now up and running. However, while much of it is standard scholarship
>> (Nikolai Fedorov's cosmism and its links to Tipler and FHI-style big
>> futures) I think it would be sensible to actually ask you in the community
>> for your views of what the "meaning of life is".
>> 
>> Some ground rules: Yes, it is not clear that the question even makes sense.
>> Do your best. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/ for a lot
>> of takes on what might be going on (including a pretty cool use of uploading
>> as a counterargument to soul-centred views). I am interested in meanings
>> that actually relate to transhumanism: either as an idea that motivates you
>> to want to enhance yourselves or hope humanity does get enhanced, or as an
>> explanation of why all of this enhancement actually is moving things along
>> in the right direction, or maybe the meaning of life as the right
>> direction(s) to enhance ourselves along.
>> 
>> Bonus meaning-of-life-points to people who can point at fun publications I
>> can cite: I love having footnotes to early issues of Extropy.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford
>> University
>> 
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Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
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