[ExI] The meaning of life (in transhumanism)

[Anders Sandberg]

Thanks for your answers! Very thought provoking, and actually useful. Some observations:
We are *way* naturalistic subjectivists on this list. I think Adrian was the only one even mentioning non-naturalistic sources of purpose, and objectivist ideas mentioned have mainly dealt with the nature of biological life and its purpose. In fact, many of the answers were pretty classic existentialism! 
It is interesting to note that most answers did not directly jump into transhumanism, but were about general life philosophies. So at least around here it doesn't look like people base their sense of purpose on a transhumanist idea as the core value, but rather that one can choose a meaning, and we happen to have chosen transhumanist-aligned views. Of course, cause and effect may be mixed.
While most responses were individualistic or focused on enhancing the individual self, I also got a very relevant off-list response about non-individual goals. There seem to be an interesting tension between some of the me-centric subjective purposes of some transhumanists and the more other-regarding purposes of other transhumanists. 


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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