Ron Reagan addresses transhumanism.

[elfs]

It's so cute listening to mainstream pundits trying to deal with Transhuman/Posthuman/H+ issues. The main thrust of his topic was this: someday, we'll all be able to live indefinitely long lives, as long as we're willing to upgrade significants parts of our body with reliable replacements.

He took about six calls in the half hour he alloted to the idea, and all of the calls had the exact same theme: it'll never work. Reagan himself seemed to think that the whole idea was preposterous and kinda creepy, and he pointed out a careful elision in Ray Kurzweil's recent essay that sparked Reagan's topic: Kurzweil never once mentions the brain.

I think that was deliberate, Kurzweil didn't want to creep us out too much. (The Telegraph only hightened the creepiness by using a photo of a stripped terminator for its accent.)

So, let's deal with the issues in order. In order to understand some of the objections, and the responses, you should probably have finished the Staying Alive quiz on your foundational views of personal identity, and understanding that my view of continuity is psychological: we believe we are the same person, moment by moment, day by day, because of some emergent property of consciousness. As long as that conviction (which is a similar conviction to the one that says "sleep is safe") remains, and as long as I receive consensus about my identity from those around me, "I" continue to exist.

There were two main objections:

Objection 1: Replace enough of me, and I won't be me.

This was Reagan's strongest objection, and two of his callers echoed it. The problem with this objection is twofold: In some ways, all of you has been replaced. Only a few of the atoms in your body are the same as the ones with which you were born. We're constantly taking food and air and water in, and passing it out the other end, changing our bodily make-up minute by minute, hour by hour. Every day we forget things; and every day we have new experiences that teach us more. It is only a conviction so strong it may as well be a truism (although some philosophers call it an illusion) that the person you are this second is the same person you remember being twenty years ago, and the same person you believe will arise in your bed tomorrow.

What's really going on in this objection is an observation of gradualism: we change gradually, and in ways for which our evolutionary history has primed us: growing, aging, disease, death. If the changes happened gradually, and most of them were hidden from sight, we'd never notice. Even the slow replacement of brain cells: no one believes that each brain cell by itself makes up "you." No single brain cell is conscious. If we could replace them with reliable, compartmentable equivalents, one at a time, would we even notice?

Objection 2: I'll get bored

So?

Really. Wouldn't you rather have the opportunity to become completely bored with life, after you've written a dozen symphonies, climbed every mountain the Solar System has to offer, sculpted, drawn, loved a thousand people, read and written every book, competed in every sport, challenged yourself in every way-- and come to assume that there are no more challenges.

Besides, what makes people think that in twenty years we won't have made enormous strides in psychological self-control, through medication or other means, such that "boredom" and "distraction" will be banished to some ancient bad time the way we now banish "female hysteria" to the 19th century?

I guess I'll just never understand people who think that their alloted three-score-and-ten is "good enough for me, and good enough for you, too."

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Aaaagh! Kurzweil.

(Bah, humbug. Everything Kurzweil says on the subject he seems to have lifted wholesale from the Extropians mailing list, circa 1990-95. I was there, too, and at least I credit my sources!)

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. But it was adorable listening to Ronald Reagan's son wrestle with the issues, poorly.

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

I guess I'll just never understand people who think that their alloted three-score-and-ten is "good enough for me, and good enough for you, too."

There is a belief by many that without ills in the world, humanity becomes maladapted. The matrix explored this with the answer to "by why is their distress in the matrix?" (Becuase we tried a perfect world and the humans didn't accept it as reality.)

There are things which make us human. A sex drive, for example. I think we'd both agree that sans sex drive, human society would be something else entirely. Perhaps not a bad thing -- I could imagine it being a great thing -- and yet I don't want to live there because my feeling is that it would be a loss, even if objectively 'better' in some ways. I don't WANT to lose the messy painful aspects of sexuality. The accidental parenthood that sends life in another direction. The NRE and early fumblings of a new relationship. Those things are SO fundamental of my sense of being alive and being human that I don't even really care if maybe the world would be a better place in many concrete ways.

I suspect the knowledge that we will each die someday is also fundamental to what we currently are. By middle age it becomes a present reminder, as our own elders reach that stage and we see our children begin to come into their own.

I feel these things make me human. My mortality. My sexuality. My mind and consciousness. My spiritual drive. I don't want to give up any of these, because they are woven into every day of my life.

(Which is not to say I'm not fascinated by the idea of actually getting to do all the things I dream of. But then I think sometimes of going back and changing a particular core decision I once made, which has caused pain that will last in my children's lives, and yet I don't think I would if given the chance. What else might change?)

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Just want to address one point. "The knowledge that we will each die someday"

I don't think all of us have that and that when we develop it, if ever, is based purely on the experiences of our life as we get older. Children definitely don't have any idea that they're going to die one-day, few teenagers do, and I know I never believed I would die for the first 30 years of my life. Now, I think I may die before the tech gets here to stop it.

But my son, with a doctorate in bio-computing, an artificial intelligence coder, DJ, burner, extropian, etc, is fully convinced that he won't, even if he has to build the tech himself. Interestingly, he believes he can double his expected life span purely by eating the right things, exercising properly, and taking a few brain supplements as well, so he's planing on being bright, active and functional for over 100 years, and he's pretty convinced that sometime in that 100 years the necessary tech to extend life times indefinitely will become available.

Personally I've always taken the following well-known poetic line as a commandment : "Do not go gentle into that good night"

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, this sort of thing is right up your alley, isn't it?
....although i don't think most of your stories can be read on the air.

[ibsulon.livejournal.com]

I must admit that replacing the brain still makes me squeamish. While I understand that it is continually regenerating, I have to feel that there would be a portion of the brain being replaced that would make me "notice" - and by that, I mean that the consciousness I identify as "me" would no longer be around. That conviction that "I" am around could very well exist if that fundamental "consciousness" cluster of cells was replaced; however, it would be an equivalent being.

I don't care about preserving my social existence, I care about my Self no longer being around. How do you prove that property hasn't been disrupted?

at the risk of seeming combative...

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

If we could replace them with reliable, compartmentable equivalents, one at a time, would we even notice?

This is a fascinating question that I suspect my great- great- great- great- great-grandchildren will have at best a fractionally larger need of having to seriously grapple with than we do.

Sorry, but way too much of this discussion reminds me of the old New Yorker cartoon: "and then a miracle occurs... (http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/pages/gallery.php)". As far as I can tell, the Big Problems of transhumanism (notably: a working model of human consciousness that can be run on a Turing machine, and an exhaustive understanding of the mechanisms of aging and death) are still in the "amusingly speculative" category.

...which is not to say that it's not fun or even worthwhile to consider them, but looking down your nose at people who've not considered it to be worth their time to do so strikes me as premature, possibly centuries so.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

I love transhuman things. I'm working on a story now where one group of humans stopped the aging process and live for thousands of years. They're also very strong, and have healing powers such that they can even regrow limbs. (And can use mechanical replacement parts in emergencies.)

I would love to be able to transfer my consciousness into an immortal body. Preferably one that doesn't need to eat, and doesn't get uncomfortable. I could save a bundle on food and shelter!