Transhumanism.

[sporosofyadah]

MachineMuse

The Jawbreaker

What is our goal in this "transcendence?" Personally I feel the biggest goal we have working towards a "Cloud" existence (or cloudsistance if you like XD) would be the elimination of the need for physical resources. An electric consciousness doesn't need air, water, shelter, food etc, etc of which there is a limited amount of.

Maybe not, but if it's going to be an active consciousness ie. one which processes incoming stimuli in real-time, then it is going to need electricity and cooling, which might not be trivial to obtain.

Or, on a more abstract level, cloud-people are going to need 'processor cycles' to live (as well as storage space). Maybe it seems like we have an abundant amount right now, but keep in mind the human brain produces about 10-100 trillion spikes per second. And those aren't a single floating-point operation, either. Can you imagine a dystopian future ~in the cloud~ where ineffective or wasteful people are relegated to backwater servers with laggy connections, slower processors, and faulty hard drives? D: What a world that would be.

But I have faith in Moore's law. As long as we keep our reproduction to a responsible rate, I think we'll be OK.

Obviously I don't believe any pioneering efforts towards an encoded virtual living space would yield any tremendous results. It would require years, (perhaps decades) of tweaking and attention to detail and code. A massive project, for all of the worlds greatest minds in collaboration to say the least.

[MachineMuse]

The Jawbreaker

Obviously I don't believe any pioneering efforts towards an encoded virtual living space would yield any tremendous results. It would require years, (perhaps decades) of tweaking and attention to detail and code. A massive project, for all of the worlds greatest minds in collaboration to say the least.

Yup, for sure. But we've got the basics down and it's definitely doable. It's just a matter of exploring in more detail and developing better tools.

[sporosofyadah]

MachineMuse

The Jawbreaker

Obviously I don't believe any pioneering efforts towards an encoded virtual living space would yield any tremendous results. It would require years, (perhaps decades) of tweaking and attention to detail and code. A massive project, for all of the worlds greatest minds in collaboration to say the least.

Yup, for sure. But we've got the basics down and it's definitely doable. It's just a matter of exploring in more detail and developing better tools.

I think I love you sweatdrop

[MachineMuse]

The Jawbreaker

I think I love you sweatdrop

And to think you were mad 'cause I shot you down a few minutes ago blaugh

[sporosofyadah]

MachineMuse

The Jawbreaker

I think I love you sweatdrop

And to think you were mad 'cause I shot you down a few minutes ago blaugh

lol it's cool. I just get passionate when people aren't as excited or weirdly obsessed with science EXACTLY like I am. I've got a pretty good mental image of both a future utopia and dystopia, even though I know it's illogical to conclude society will go either way XD
For me, a different technique for preserving, developing, (or perhaps "uninhibiting?" wink consciousnesses is a necessity for that future utopia, and grounded stale "traditional" model of consciousness seems like it could easily result in a dystopian society.

[MachineMuse]

The Jawbreaker

MachineMuse

The Jawbreaker

I think I love you sweatdrop

And to think you were mad 'cause I shot you down a few minutes ago blaugh

lol it's cool. I just get passionate when people aren't as excited or weirdly obsessed with science EXACTLY like I am. I've got a pretty good mental image of both a future utopia and dystopia, even though I know it's illogical to conclude society will go either way XD
For me, a different technique for preserving, developing, (or perhaps "uninhibiting?" wink consciousnesses is a necessity for that future utopia, and grounded stale "traditional" model of consciousness seems like it could easily result in a dystopian society.

If it's 'uninhibition' you're after, that's not something we can solve with technology while still maintaining some level of service towards our roots. Our experiences make us this way. It takes experience to undo it.

[sporosofyadah]

MachineMuse

The Jawbreaker

MachineMuse

The Jawbreaker

I think I love you sweatdrop

And to think you were mad 'cause I shot you down a few minutes ago blaugh

lol it's cool. I just get passionate when people aren't as excited or weirdly obsessed with science EXACTLY like I am. I've got a pretty good mental image of both a future utopia and dystopia, even though I know it's illogical to conclude society will go either way XD
For me, a different technique for preserving, developing, (or perhaps "uninhibiting?" wink consciousnesses is a necessity for that future utopia, and grounded stale "traditional" model of consciousness seems like it could easily result in a dystopian society.

If it's 'uninhibition' you're after, that's not something we can solve with technology while still maintaining some level of service towards our roots. Our experiences make us this way. It takes experience to undo it.

It's more of just a possibility?

[Odetotheoterprincess]

Suicidesoldier#1

I don't think you change being human just by getting robot parts.

I wear glasses; am I a cyborg?!


I must not be human!

I CAN SEE FOREVER!


Yeah I don't think there will be a "class" difference for having say, a prosthetic heart.

Very few people will oppose that.

but careful engineering I could if I had the skilset and the available tools produce a set of glasses for myself which are sufficient, to improve my eyes beyond what would be normal.

Eitehr way I plan to omens my entire body to be able to fly and dive to increadibly deep depths.

[Manas Advocate]

Will a transhuman society even have disparities in wealth? Eventually, all the jobs that low income people do (manufacturing for example) could be replaced by machines, and human workers would only be needed for jobs that machines cannot do, such as software design, engineering, or anything else that requires creative thinking.

Its possible that we could eventually reach a point at which we have hit our technological threshold, a point at which the human brain is not "powerful" enough to advance technology any further on its own, and would require some kind of artificial augmentation.

[Dijital Silence]

I think it's a great outlook on the future. All of what we do is to inevitably better ourselves. It's in our nature to better ourselves. We were weak so we invented tools. We've advanced medical technology to the point of "augmentations." A hearing aid may not constitute a cyborg, but then again, what does? We're eradicating (or at least greatly hindering) diseases and allowing people to not die from an infection that stemmed from getting cut on a twig. We've enabled people with poor vision to see better. Technology is not inherently good or evil. Not allowing certain events or technology to be realized because of basing it only on what bad can come of it is stifling an epoch in human history that can better the human race. Guns, drugs, knives, vehicles, TV, music, and even alarm clocks; none of these inherently good or evil. But these can all ultimately be used for destruction. In the words of Adam Jensen "To turn away from it now; to stop pursuing the future in which technology and biology combine leading to the promise of a singularity would mean to deny the very essence of who we are." We need to take responsibility with how we harness technology. We can achieve a singularity which results in and resulted from good. Denying it because of the harm humans have the capability of spreading is the same as denying the creation of a knife because of the harm that can be done. "No doubt the road to get there will be bumpy; hurting some people along the way. But won't achieving the dream be worth it? We can become the gods we've always been striving to be. We might as well get good at it."

[Avenoir]

There are always ethical issues when it comes to the alteration of certain biological processes in humans...that well...make us human.

I've never actually thought much about transhumanism, but I think of genetic engineering. I'll just go ahead and assume that there are many similarities about the positive things about both of them; they both take a trait and make it better. In transhumanism, it's through technology and the acquiring of desirable human capacities. In genetic engineering, it's using biotechnological changes to acquire certain traits by using genetic manipulation.

When placed in terms of humans, I don't think either will make situations better. I just cannot imagine why people want to have these artificial changes done to them, whether for performance, for cosmetic reasons, or by means of productivity. Aside from medical prosthetics for amputations, I cannot grasp the concept of actually enhancing human traits entirely.

What really makes things interesting is our differences. Both physically and intellectually. What transhumanism does is enhance that, putting different people on similar levels.

Where's the uniqueness there? Where's the human there?

It puts us closer to ideals, but not closer to who we really are. So through my thought process, I find it morally disturbing, actually.

Plus, Japan has problems with the aging processes. I've seen enough movies involving androids to know that slowing the aging process of humans can drastically change not only the whole population/area ratio, but forcing ourselves to stop means of reproduction or removing an amount of people to accommodate the slowly aging people.

Forgive me if I got my logic all screwed up. My only excuse is that I'm a high schooler who might have trouble understanding what's unique and what's not...

[BlackBeltMan]

I think it'll depend on which country you come from. In the more awesomely socialist countries, you'll probably get a general advancement, in more capitalist countries you'll probably see a splitting class, until the technology gets better/cheaper and then you'll see the lower classes catch up. Also, you might see sub classes ie: which prosthetic parts go with which subculture. Will you have battles ( fake or real ) between people with advanced legs vs. people with advanced arms? What about ones who casn think faster versus ones who have multiple appendages?

I like this idea personally and wish I was born 50 years later perhaps so i could become enhanced. Oh the wishes of a man born out of his time period...

[Bouhasu Kitsuhana Mika]

Doctor Wolfington MD

All righty ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to know your opinions about transhumanism in general. What do you think about technological evolution, the ethics that would come along with it, not to mention the possible class difference. SO come one come all discuss and be civil, I'd truly like to know.

Most of it is scientifically impossible nonsense from the minds of uneducated rich people who pay scientists to act like they're making it. I am not kidding, I am stating the truth of the entire "transhumanism" thing.

Look up H+ things on youtube, and if you actually follow the subject of science, you will find yourself appalled by most of it.

[Je Nique vos Merdiers]

It's hard to imagine any outcome to the cyberization of humans other than an extremely rapid consolidation of individuals into a collective, networked cyberbrain. Once it becomes possible for two people to exchange information at a speed approximate to the speed of thought, every additional brain in the network is advantageous. It also decreases the likelihood that the next person would refuse to network.

At the same time, this brain would resemble our individual ones, in that many conflicting thought processes, each with probabilities and associations attached to them, will form a conscious mind much like the one we have. If the network of our minds is also linked to the network of computers and machinery, then our civilization essentially becomes our body. So, we have a network of human minds, forming a single, overarching consciousness, and a global, biomechanical body. We'd all share one another's good and bad feelings, as well. The implication, of course, being that there will be no point in individuation, and certainly no point in a stratified society.

That is not to say that everything would be the same, since there would still be lots of additional knowledge for us to gain, as well as differring observations that can color our collective judgment. However, when we are sharing our thoughts so clearly and rapidly that we can't distinguish it from our own thoughts, then what is the point of being an individual?

[Screaming Wombat]

Transhumanism is one of those things where you won't know it's happened until maybe 5 years after the fact.

To illustrate my point, consider the fact that there's a man in Texas with no heartbeat.
His heart gave out, so doctors replaced his heart with a more efficient artificial replacement. It doesn't really make any pumping movements, it just circulates blood through the body at an even pace, so, no heartbeat.

This really didn't make a lot of waves whenever it was announced, we were too busy with other things, you know, celebrity gossip. Still, this really was big. Not only does he have an artificial heart, but you might even argue it's better than the real thing.

Eventually, very advanced prosthetics will be engineered, media will continue to ignore them, even as people who had disabilities in the past are now equipped with physical and mental augmentations that essentially make them superior to the average human being, we'll still be too busy focused on gossip, the next war, politics, what have you. Then, one day, we'll realize that there are a lot of "augmented" human beings out there (lulz, Deus Ex) and that they are kinda better than us, in a lot of ways. That will be the moment where we look back, and realize, that somewhere, we entered a "Transhuman Age".