Transhumanism may at first bring to mind skeptical scenarios of far-future technology brushed
off as mere science fiction. However, many tenets of this developing philosophical
movement are already happening today and evidence is increasingly mounting that some of it’s
most remarkable claims, such as those involving artificial superintelligence, should be seriously
examined. Transhumanism is a philosophical movement
that advocates for transforming the human condition by developing and making widely
available sophisticated technologies to greatly enhance human intellect and physiology.
Transhumanism consists of a growing class of various philosophies and ideas and not
all transhumanist thinkers necessarily agree with one another.
This video will serve as an introduction to transhumanism and some of it’s main tenets.
Specifically, we’ll cover the ideas of Abolitionism or the eradication of human suffering, Singularitarianism,
or research and ideas regarding the technological singularity and super intelligence, and immortalism,
the idea that man can eventually become immortality.
But first, a brief history and introduction to what transhumanism is and how it came to
be.
The biologist Julian Huxley is generally regarded as the founder of transhumanism after using
the term for the title of an influential 1957 article. Huxley describes transhumanism in
these terms:
“Up till now human life has generally been, as Hobbes described it, 'nasty, brutish and
short'; the great majority of human beings (if they have not already died young) have
been afflicted with misery… we can justifiably hold the belief that these lands of possibility
exist, and that the present limitations and miserable frustrations of our existence could
be in large measure surmounted… The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself—not
just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but
in its entirety, as humanity.”
In 1988 the first transhumanist magazine, Extropy: Vaccine for Future Shock, was published
by Max More and T.O. Morrow, two of the original thinkers behind transhumanism.
Then, in 1992 the first version of what would be called “The Transhumanist Manifesto”
was published by Natasha Vita-More helping clarify what transhumanist thinkers believed,
researched, and advocated for.
Today, as of this video recording, Humanity+ Inc is the most influential transhumanist
organization founded in 1998 by philosophers Nick Bostrom and David Pearce and originally
called the World Transhumanist Association. This organization seeks to continue to define,
educate, and fund transhumanistic projects and research.
What specificaly is transhumanism? Humanity+ today defines transhumanism as the following.
The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of
fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing
and making widely-available technologies to eliminate aging and greatly enhance human
intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.
The study of ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will
enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters
involved in developing and using such technologies.
What is a transhuman, then? A transhuman is a being that resembles a human in most respects
but who has powers and abilities beyond those of standard humans. This need not be something
like the terminator but can simply be your grandpa or relative with, say, a pacemaker
installed. He’s transcended humanity in a sense, being kept alive with unnatural artificially
constructed technology.
That brings us to one of the main pillars of transhumanism, abolitionism, or the abolition
of pain and suffering in conscious creatures.
Some transhumanist thinkers believe we have the power to transcend our misery and suffering
not sporadically like today, but for entirety.
David Pearce outlined this idea in his self-published internet manifesto in 1995 THe Hedonstic Imperative
writing…
Post-human states of magical joy will be biologically refined, multiplied and intensified indefinitely.
Notions of what now passes for tolerably good mental health are likely to be superseded...
In time, the deliberate re-creation of today's state-spectrum of normal waking and dreaming
consciousness may be outlawed as cruel and immoral.
He goes on to details how a combination of pharmacology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology,
and neurosurgery could converge to eliminate all forms of unpleasant experiences from human
and non-human life, replacing suffering with "gradients of bliss."
Suffering for future humans, will could be what ‘happy’ in general is for us. And
happiness for future transhumans could be once-in-a-lifetime feeling of ecstatic bliss
for us of today.
Some transhumanists believe we understand enough about the human brain today and have
enough capital available to potentially accomplish such a feat in our lifetimes if we all work
together.
After all, we’re witnessing the miracles of technology and science create things like
BCIs or brain-computer interfaces that allow paraplegics to grasp and feel objects again
and medications that stave off effects of serious depression and mental disorders, for
instance.
Pearce goes so far as to write that seeing abolitionism through is not only in humanity’s
best interest, the morally correct thing for all of us to do.
Another imperative of transhumanism is understanding and planning for the singularity.
Singularitarianism is another movement within transhumanism defined by the belief that a
technological singularity—or the creation of a vast superintelligence—will likely
happen this century, and that deliberate action ought to be taken to ensure that the singularity
benefits humans.
Nick Bostrom defines superintelligence as "any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive
performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest". We’re talking about something,
partially or interely artificially constructed that is smarter than all humans combined.
Some researchers believe that superintelligence will likely follow shortly after the development
of something called artificial general intelligence or AGI. AGI is the hypothetical ability of
an intelligent agent, such as a robot, to understand or learn any intellectual task
that a human can.
The theory is that AGI will be smart enough to improve itself rapidly in a short time
span without human intervention and give way to super intelligence very fast. What the
super intelligence will do and how it will behave is beyond human comprehension. Hence
it’s similar to a singularity, a point of unknowing.
The concept of the technological singularity was first proposed by the British cryptologist
I. J. Good in 1965 writing “Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined
as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however
clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent
machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence
explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent
machine is the last invention that man need ever make.”
The term technological singularity was coined by mathematician and author Vernor Vinge in
the 1980’s.
However, today we most associate the philosophy and study of the singularity with Ray Kurtzwile,
an American inventor and futurist who serves as Google's Director of Engineering.
Kurzweil predicted decades ago that the singularity will occur by in 2045 is today is more sure
of his prediction than ever.
He cites exponential growth in computing technology as suggested by Moore’s law as why it will
happen this century. Moore’s law states that the number of transistors on a microprocessor
chip will double every two years or so — which has generally meant that the chip’s performance
will, too.
Follow what he calls ‘the law of accelerating returns" technology and continued exponential
growth the computing power of all computers will soon exceed that of human brains. At
that time superhuman artificial intelligence will appear.
Not all transhumanists agree with Kurzweil timeline, but many do believe superintelligence
could be a realistic and serious threat to humanity this century.
Bostrom has written extensively on A.I. and superintelligent existential risks to humanity's
future, including in his best selling 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Not only do we already have A.I. -based weapons that pose a serious risk to large parts of
humanity, but a superintelligence could be so powerful it may accidentally destroy humanity.
Bostrom gives the example of a superintelligence instructed to create paperclips more efficiently
or calculate pi. In an attempt to calculate pi, the superintelligence may create and send
nanobots to harvest all the world’s resources for more computing power, and eventually the
galaxy’s resources. This all just to keep doing its calculations effectively, increasly
finding more numbers in pi or refining its paper clips, thus destroying civilization
by accident.
“We should not be confident in our ability to keep a super-intelligent genie locked up
in its bottle forever.” -- Nick Bostrom
Bostrom’s book and work led to notable scientists and philosophers, including Stephen Hawking,
Elon Musk, and others to sign an open letter on artificial intelligence calling for serious
research and preventive measures in 2014.
Musk went on to donate over $10 million to invest in research for the creation of "friendly
AI." However, some in transhumanism believe, if Kurtzweil is even remotely correct, that
we need far more severe investigation and research into A.I. to prevent something irreversable
happening.
Finally, another major pillar and perhaps the most fascinating part, of transhumanism,
is immortalism, the belief that humans, if wanting to, can live forever.
Max More defines an immortalist as one who "believes in the possibility of, and who seeks
to attain, physical immortality", in contrast to someone just seeking to increase lifespan
and overall health.
Today there have emerged a few paths toward immortality within transhumanism. One associated
Aubrey De Grey, who believes aging merely is a curable disease and the other with Ray
Kurzweil, who believes advanced technology and mind uploading will lead to immortality.
De Grey is the chief science officer at (Sens) Research Foundation a regenerative medicine
research center that believes, in a nutshell, that the human body is a highly complex machine
and, thus, can be repaired indefinitely.
This conclusion isn’t a hypothetical guess but based on increasingly significant scientific
studies.
Examples include research into telomere length and metabolism, indicating that aging can
significantly slowed or stopped in mammals.
De Grey argues that most of the fundamental knowledge needed to develop effective anti-aging
medicine already exists, and in 2008 broadcast said the first person to live to be 1000 years
old already exists today.
However, just because we end aging doesn’t mean we avoid death entirely.
This thinking has led Kurtzweil and other transhumanist thinkers to believe humanity
should, and eventually will, use mind uploading to become fully immortal.
Mind uploading, also known as whole brain emulation, is the hypothetical futuristic
process of scanning a physical structure of the brain accurately enough to create an emulation
of the mental state (including long-term memory and "self") and copying it into a digital
form.
The thinking is that the mind is fully physical, an emergent property of a neuronal network.
If one can somehow copy and digitize all the matter in it, you can recreate it artificially
elsewhere.
One can leave their ‘biological shell’ and leave enterally through digital versions
entering different bodies and forms perhaps.
If your physical body was to die in an accident, a backup copy woudl be made to replace it.
Kurtzwile and others have proposed the estimated processing power needed to emulate a human
brain at various levels, with Kurtzwild believing mind uploading could happen this century and
others, including Bostrom unsure, but thinking it’s feasible.
However, unlike research into anti-aging, mind uploading is just speculative at best
at this stage.
That leads us to ask, what’s the end goal of transhumanism philosophy?
Some thinkers believe the transhumanist evolution of man will give way to the posthuman. A posthuman
is a hypothetical future human whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present
humans and are so much more advanced, they appear to be deity-like to current homo sapiens.
Yes, the goal of some transhumanists is to become immortal god-like entities.
What posthumans will do is beyond our understanding today, but it would seem that anything is
possible, just like it was for the ancient Gods of Greece and Rome.
As futurist and writer Arthur C. Clarke wrote, "It may be that our role on this planet is
not to worship God - but to create him."
Now, there’s far more to transhumanism philosophy and this video was to serve as a very brief
introduction. Let me know what you think of anything covered here and if you want more
research or my opinions on transhumanism or any specific topics in it just comment below.
Again, many parts of transhumanism are still very speculative now, but worth pursuing and
writing about.
That includes this idea of working together to end suffering for all conscious creatures
in our lifetime and seriously investigating the dangers of superintelligence and A.I.
weapons.
After all, technology does seem to be progressing exponentially while human thought is still
very linear and having trouble grasping at the complexity and speed of it.
It may seem foolish just to drop everything we’re doing and focus mainly on theoretical
issues in AI. But then again if some of these transhumanist philosophers are even remotely
right and something like a superintelligence is created and weaponized, we may be like
little children playing with dangerous bombs that are bound to go off.
Mind uploading, superintelligent weapons, and more may arrive long before we’re ready
to deal with them and the existential and even ethical issues they bring.