Transhumanism and I: some reckonings...

The Transhumanist movment has been a significant part of my life for the past year or so. I have considered myself a Transhumanist, read a lot of the popular Transhumanist literature, participated in Transhumanist discussions, and accepted a lot of the prominent Transhumanist themes and concepts--in fact was very enthusiastic about them. It was one of the things that filled in the gap created when I left a religion that had been a huge part of my life.

However, there were some things, even before I could exactly put my finger on them, that have bugged me about a lot of prevalent Transhumanist views and ideas, or views and ideas, whether or not they are explicitly Transhumanist, that are so common to the Transhumanist community that they seem inseparably intertwined with the movement itself. That has been the source of quite a bit of anxiety and confusion for quite a while, especially at times when I felt my own worldview was partially shaped by things that were bothering me. I've been unsure of what to make of anything several times; at certain points, frustrated, I've said to myself "over this past year, I've learned more confusion that anything." Worldviews that are uneasy with each other can coincide for a certain period of time, difficultly and painstakingly, like those scenes from the movie Ghost in which a ghost tries to inhabit the body of a person that doesn't want it. But that can lead to cognitive dissonance and an eventual reckoning of sorts.

I've reached some important reckonings with Transhumanism or with the Transhumanist community, some stands I must take against those words, views, assertions and assumptions that have, I now realize, been a corrosive influence on my very soul.

(If you are familiar with the Transhumanist community, you may have a good idea of the kinds of things to which I'm referring; if not, remember that there's more to Transhumanism as a philosophy itself than just these things).

• I am against techological determinism, the belief or underlying and often-unspoken (even denied-while-held) viewpoint that the future is something that happens to us rather than something we shape and bring about--along with the idea that technological progress (or the technological "curve") has a mind of its own and and that we're along for the ride.




• I don't believe in the Singularity. Actually, I'm not only not a Singulariarian, I would consider myself an anti-Singularitarian. While I wouldn't seek to hinder Singularity proponents from engaging in AI projects (and in fact I support and encourage them, because I think they will always yield something of value), I will actively seek to hinder their propagation of Singularity/Artificial General Intelligence/mind-uploading fantasies to others, by actively countering it. Why? Because at the base of these ideas is a fundamentally incorrect notion of what humans are*; to put it more clearly, they seek to lift machines in principle up by bringing humans in principle down, to what they never were.




• I am against positivism, and I am very much against the kinds of pretension that seem to go with positivistic scientism, such as that found in neo-Darwinism, genetic determinism, cybernetic totalism (to use Jaron Lanier's phrase), rabid reductionism, eliminativism, and other shoddy philosophies that have been confused for science.




• I am against quasi-religious militant atheism about as much as I'm against religious fundamentalism. A phony "rationaler than thou" attitude rubs me the wrong way about as much as a pious "holier than thou" attitude does. And while I think Isaac Newton was a great figure in the history of science (although one whose reign has long passed), I will never be so antagonistic against religious and cultural traditions that I celebrate "Newtonmass" instead of Christmas.




• I am strongly against market fundamentalism, excuses for exploitation, and the narrowly and poorly conceived worldviews that go with them, such as the ones expressed by right-Libertarians (which most self-professed "Libertarian Transhumanists" seem to be), neoliberals, neoclassical economists, Austrians (the school, not the nationality), or Chicago Boys.




• I am against elitism in all forms--not just political, economic, and social elitism, but also academic elitism, intellectual elitism, and cyber-elitism (post on this upcoming) as well.

So where do I stand? I identify with Transhumanism as far as it is concerned with a belief in improvement and augmentation, cyborgs, assisting human liberation with technological advancement in association with social activism, and the realization that not all problems are technological problems, and technology can't save us by itself, particularly when it is used to exacerbate problems that are caused by society. But there are many things I don't associate with that seem to be inextricably connected to the whole Transhumanist bag, not only with parts of its history but more importantly with contemporary factions and constituencies from which it can't seem to disassociate itself, and maybe might not even want to.

Perhaps I should identify myself first and foremost with technoprogressivism, as Dale Carrico has done. I believe the future is open, it is not decided yet--not by me, not by any group of people, not by runaway forces or entities or classes of human activity, and certainly not by technocrats and digerati. Humans, as creative forces that enter the universe, actually do have the power to create their own future, the power to shape their reality by the way they look at it and how that inspires them to act. And I believe in a non-authoritarian cyberpunk/biopunk future that belongs to everyone, and in which people still dream and act to make those dreams reality, instead of a future in which every minute is a shiny, thinly-veiled waking nightmare that you witness but can't do anything about.

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*This is based on the realization that key features of human brains, intelligence and functioning (just like those of my dog and cat, or any organism with the simplest proto-consciousness) are non-algorithmic and not able to be modeled algorithmically--i.e., not Turing computable. It was inspired by and is strongly supported by my own experience as a conscious human being and by modern quantum theory's empirically-based understanding of the universe, as well as the emerging fields of quantum neuroscience and psychophysics--a total scientific and ontological revolution that Dennett, Churchland et all and the AGI community have not yet been able to see.

(This is thanks in a very large part due to my discovery and deep reflection on the writings of Dr. Henry Stapp, a quite insightful physicist who specializes in the area of quantum mechanics, which has helped to free myself from the dominant grasp of a counterintuitive, counterempirical, counterlogical, and currently dominant idea--that consciousness is an "illusion").