I've been thinking again about Nikki Sullivan's and Susan Stryker's talk at HETHR recently. This was one of the most difficult talks I attended -- a lot of the language employed seemed to be taken from realms of academia that my engineering education did not venture anywhere near.
Nevertheless, it has been background-processing in my brain for the past 2 months or so, and I've come to wonder whether in some ways, abilities can be conceived as obligations. Just as a soldier who cut off his sword hand could invite the death penalty for doing so centuries ago, people today who assert their right to continued existence -- in their preferred form -- are often met with everything from ridicule to outright punishment. In some cases, a self-perceived enhancement is actually viewed by the majority as anything from bizarre self-injury to deep moral transgression.
For example, consider the case of radical life extension. I am extremely enthusiastic about this notion and plan to do whatever I can to live a very long, very healthy life, and to take full advantage of any aspects of escape velocity that become feasible for me. I consider life extension to be a very positive thing, yet there are plenty of people who consider such efforts as something very like amputation!
That is, by not allowing "nature" to take its course as I age, I am somehow cutting off a vital part of my humanity, and in doing so hurting "humanity" as a whole. Therefore, it is quite important in discussions of modifications to consider that what one person might consider an obvious advantage or positive, another person might consider horrifying. It can be extremely difficult to evaluate modifications (or states of being) from an exterior perspective.
Nevertheless, I do think that there are some interesting means of evaluating the goodness of a state of being in some contexts -- and as I will discuss later in this essay, it might be useful to -- when considering a potential morphological or cognitive modification -- try to assess whether a person's desire for that modification is based on a false belief or a reasonable assessment of the modification's likely effects. This will not, of course, lay the groundwork for any sort of legislation as far as this discussion is concerned, but rather for a philosophical tool that might assist people in evaluating proposals when such an evaluation is called for.
While the talk I referenced above did apply, if loosely, to the topic of "self-demand amputation" -- a practice I will admit to finding somewhat bizarre and grotesque -- I think that the matter of bodily sovereignty is important, and that in considering the future, it is crucial that people develop the capacity to consider the philosophical implications of grotesque hypotheticals without becoming overly distracted by the suggested imagery. The Sullivan/Stryker talk suggested to me that there is a long-standing conflict between the self-perceived power of a state, and the sovereignty of its citizens.
It is necessary to differentiate between people being tools and people using tools. I would suggest that in efforts to develop a workable future society model, or at least critical aspects of such a model, we ought to think in terms of people being provided with opportunities to consensually modify (or maintain) themselves in keeping with their own goals in life, rather than in terms of creating people who seem to fit a particular contemporary social need or role, or encouraging social memes and policies that seek to define persons by the social utility of their ability set.
Returning to the matter of people as tools versus people using tools to transform themselves as desired, judgements of primarily individual-affecting practices -- despite the fact that individual-affecting practices might indeed have considerable social consequences when exercised on a large scale -- must necessarily consider uncertainty factors that are not present in primarily other-affecting practices.
For instance, a person might advise a friend not to get a tattoo on the basis that the tattoo will diminish the friend's chances of securing employment. However, if the friend has aspirations of becoming an artist, a musician, an author, a dancer, or a freelance video game designer, it isn't likely that the tattoo will make much difference one way or another. Yes, it might limit opportunities in some contexts, but there isn't any guarantee that it will do so. It is also likely that the tattoo might enhance some opportunities that the well-meaning, advice-giving friend has not considered.
It is necessary to look at this situation from two different frames of reference:
1. That in which an individual enhances some aspects of their life at the (known) risk of limiting other potential aspects
2. That in which an individual makes a choice (or chooses to remain in a state) that reduces the apparent number and range of tasks they can perform in a society.
It is my suspicion that many people, perhaps unknowingly, argue from the second frame of reference, regardless of the fact that this "range reduction" may be only apparent rather than actual (and few people take the time or exert the energy to examine such things closely), and regardless of the fact that in some cases, a reduction in breadth can allow a corresponding increase in depth. For instance, consider a (common and widely accepted) case wherein a person chooses one college major instead of two, three, or four.
This second frame of reference has far-reaching and pervasive consequences that can affect everything from a person's decision to drive a pickup truck to a person's socio-political positions with regard to bodily and cognitive liberty. I have, for instance, heard people who own pickup trucks complain that everyone they know constantly recruits them to help move furniture and other large objects.
In a sense, a person's decision to trade in their pickup for a coupe might be considered a form of "self-demand amputation" -- but in another sense, this decision might also be considered liberating and enabling, and therefore a form of self-perceived enhancement.
Freed from the demands of friends calling constantly to help them haul couches and refrigerators from one end of town to the other, the former truck owner might be able to start working on his novel without interruption, or re-organize his stamp collection, or perform any number of other activities. Of course, there was never any law saying that he had to give in to his friends' requests for moving assistance, but it is much more acceptable in some circles to refuse to do something on the basis that you lack the resources, than to refuse on the basis that you'd rather be doing something else. (Which is, in my opinion, the reason why we have people talking about such things as a "basic income guarantee" -- perhaps more people are getting irritated with the notion of not having enough time that is truly their own!).
It seems clear to me that being able to do more things doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a person's happiness, economic value, sense of self-worth or achievement, or ability to achieve one's chosen goals. Hence, questions of whether a given modification should be "allowed" or accepted might be somewhat contingent upon careful evaluations of things that might initially present as constraints or mistakes!
Moving now from tattoos and trucks to the more abstract and serious realms of cognitive and morphological self-determination, one of the most difficult issues faced by autistic rights advocates is the necessary acknowledgement that very few modern societies or subsocieties have evolved in a direction that permits the majority of autistics to work or even attend school without special considerations or assistance. There is no "cure" for autism, and indeed, the pervasive and variable nature of this developmental tendency makes questions of curing, and even diagnosis, hazy at best.
Nevertheless, many people might suggest that a cure for autism ought to be developed so that those who wish to take it would have that opportunity, but what would the same people say if a substance or procedure were developed that would allow people to choose to become autistic? I would predict that the latter would not be looked upon quite as favorably.
Ostensibly, the hypothetical autism-inducing serum might be looked upon with disapproval on the basis that it would bring "healthy" people to a "diseased" state. However, I would put forth that this disapproval is also related, at some level, to a belief that a person who finds value in autistic-like perception and cognition and therefore would choose to induce it is somehow making themselves less useful -- despite the fact that there are new studies showing clear advantages in some aspects of autistic perception. And if there are indeed advantages and values that stem from a particular developmental / cognitive / perceptual style, it is the responsibility of the scientific and ethical community to carefully consider these advantages and values prior to dismissing the entire "syndrome" as a useless and maladaptive state of being.
The notion of trying to limit a person's choices in terms of perceptual and cognitive style seems to run counter to the fact that, for instance, we do allow people to choose their college major and their hobbies (so long as these hobbies do not involve hurting or violating the rights and sovereignty of others), despite the fact that focusing on one goal necessarily excludes other goals, and the fact that developing some abilities very well necessarily excludes the development of other abilities in the same timespan. In the coming era of what I imagine will be widely accessible (and hopefully safe and effective) bodily and cognitive modification technologies, society will need to adjust to the fact that some people are going to make choices which might make sense to relatively few.
Choices which are made on the basis of false beliefs -- such as the anorexic's conviction that they are "fat" if their ribs and pelvises don't show -- certainly ought be be discouraged and not considered "alternative lifestyles". I would propose that the false belief standard be applied when making exterior judgements of an individual's choices and actions: that is, if a person is making a decision based on a false belief -- regardless of the consequences of that action -- then that person ought to be encouraged to reconsider that belief.
This standard also has implications for encounters between cultures -- an example I heard once, in an Internet radio interview with Alonzo Fyfe, was that of a culture who believes that throwing a virgin into a volcano periodically will somehow prevent that volcano from erupting. This is, of course, an unscientific and false belief, motivated by that powerful and deadly combination of fear and ignorance. If people are engaging in harmful actions based on a false belief, I believe that the informed have a moral imperative to attempt to educate those who hold the false belief in the interest of overall harm reduction in the world.
If anyone I knew was anorexic or bulimic, I would certainly not accept their health-damaging practices as a "lifestyle" -- I would encourage them to get help and learn about the health hazards of what they are doing. It is, after all, an objective fact that long-term anorexia will lead to adverse health effects and possibly death.
It is not an objective fact or a reasonable assumption, though, that an autistic person will experience long-term adverse health effects or death as a result of being autistic -- and it is also not an objective fact or reasonable assumption that all nonautistic people are happier and more successful than all autistic people. Nor is it true that someone who majors in art or theatre in college will never be able to get a job (contrary to the thousands of frightened suburban parents who bemoan the field of study chosen by their offspring), that people who try to start their own business will fail, or that someone who gets a tattoo will be relegated to working in porn shops for their entire working lives.
In matters of life extension, those who oppose efforts to radically extend the lives of persons often do so on the basis of a false and untenable belief that life extension will result in the "breakdown of society" or that somehow very long lives are a threat to human dignity. Remember that the same things were said about women's suffrage and the end of slavery -- and yet here we are, much better off than we were centuries ago in terms of ethical consistency and the availability of opportunities for a greater range of people to enjoy productive and satisfying lives.
Applying the false belief standard (and keeping the concept of informed, nonduressed consent in mind) to questions of whether a state of being or modification is "acceptable" in either the social or legal sense can go a long way toward helping people fine-tune their judgements, which in turn can contribute toward a healthier, safer, more democratic society that will be necessary in order to adequately respond to new technological, philosophical, and social developments.
Friday, July 21, 2006
A SENSible Reminder
Digital Crusader has brought up a good point regarding the destiny of the "consolation prize" money awarded by Technology Review to the Estep team. From the post in question,
This is certainly worthwhile observation, and one with intriguing implications. I think it is important for anyone involved in or supportive of anti-aging research to keep in mind that there are indeed avenues in addition to the SENS proposal by which healthy life extension may become a reality. SENS is certainly important in that it represents a reasonably well-organized starting point in terms of identifying intervention targets, but aging is a hard problem, and the more people working on it, the better.
Regardless of the bizarre bit of rhetoric in the introduction to the Estep et al. paper, the authors have shown themselves at least to not reside in the philosophical camp that claims everyone needs to die for whatever arbitrary reason they've happened to latch onto. All in all, I think that this outcome of this attempt to meet the SENS challenge is a win-win situation. It serves as a reminder to scientists to focus on criticizing ideas when they're encouraged to criticize ideas, and a reminder to the healthy life extension community to keep our eyes open for multiple avenues along which progress can occur.
First, I want to point out that Estep et al. have given their $10k to AFAR, the American Federation for Aging Research, an organization which seems to "get it" in terms of their focus on the causes of aging rather than the diseases which are mere symptoms of aging. For this reason I want to again say that I believe that Estep and most others in the field of biogerontology are actually doing the work that needs to be done - i.e. these people are not the bad guys (who are the anti-aging hucksters and snake-oil salesmen), but rather the heroes.
This is certainly worthwhile observation, and one with intriguing implications. I think it is important for anyone involved in or supportive of anti-aging research to keep in mind that there are indeed avenues in addition to the SENS proposal by which healthy life extension may become a reality. SENS is certainly important in that it represents a reasonably well-organized starting point in terms of identifying intervention targets, but aging is a hard problem, and the more people working on it, the better.
Regardless of the bizarre bit of rhetoric in the introduction to the Estep et al. paper, the authors have shown themselves at least to not reside in the philosophical camp that claims everyone needs to die for whatever arbitrary reason they've happened to latch onto. All in all, I think that this outcome of this attempt to meet the SENS challenge is a win-win situation. It serves as a reminder to scientists to focus on criticizing ideas when they're encouraged to criticize ideas, and a reminder to the healthy life extension community to keep our eyes open for multiple avenues along which progress can occur.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
SENS Survives First Round of Scrutiny, Judges Say
On July 11, 2006, the judges weighed in on the three recent submissions to the SENS Challenge.
I am happy to note that none of the challenge submissions met the contest criteria: that of demonstrating that the SENS proposal -- Dr. Aubrey De Grey's outline of a strategic engineering approach to address human senescence -- is "so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate". A number of sites and blogs have already commented on this turn of events; Reason has compiled a nice list of the coverage so far, but I am sure that commentary will continue.
I highly recommend reading the full article in Technology Review, as well as as many blog entries and discussion threads on this matter that you are inclined to. While the results of this challenge in no way imply that SENS will actually extend any lives, I think that these results are an important step in the journey toward safe and effective life-extension medicine.
The judges' comments as quoted in Technology Review seemed quite reasonable and professional: not gushingly optimistic, nor gloomily pessimistic.
The Estep et al. submission (Life Extension Pseudoscience and the SENS Plan Abstract) certainly seems to be receiving the most attention in the aftermath of the judges' decision, and for good reason -- this submission, while not deemed capable of discrediting SENS, did seem to impress Technology Review to the point where its authors were awarded a "consolation prize" of $10,000. Supposedly this consolation prize was in recognition of what Technology Review called "careful scholarship". It is true that the Estep et al. paper went further than the others in terms of directly addressing the technical aspects of SENS, and this is definitely respectable work.
I can only hope that the technical criticism is the reason for the payout by Technology Review, because in my mind the Estep et al. submission was seriously crippled by its initial focus on defining pseudoscience and launching what seem to be the requisite cracks at Aubrey de Grey. ("Aubrey de Grey is not the first, nor will he be the last, to promote a hopelessly insufficient but ably camouflaged pipe-dream to the hopeful many.")
In some ways, I think that the Estep et al. submission highlights an apparent tripwire in the terms of the challenge itself. After all, how can one prove something to be "unworthy of learned debate" by engaging in learned debate? Nevertheless, I would still say that this is an apparent tripwire since Estep et al. could have chosen to simply go directly to the ideas presented in SENS and attack them on their (lack of?) technical merit. I think that the outcome of this contest serves as an important admonition to scientists that when they are told to criticize an idea, they focus on the idea itself and not an attempted psychoanalysis of those who propose the idea.
I am still not sure what people think de Grey is actually up to -- from what I have observed, he doesn't seem to have any desire to create a cult of worshippers or to mislead people into thinking that he is somehow going to become their savior. Rather, he is presenting an idea and saying, "Hey, here's an idea, now let's critically examine it and see if we can do anything about aging, because let's face it, there are at least a few people on Earth who really don't relish the idea of deterioration followed by nonexistence."
The judges also note, importantly, that:
This statement does exhibit shades of the Galileo Gambit but as I pointed out in this entry, the fact that much of pseudoscience tends to be promoted on the basis that sometimes radical ideas turn out to be true does not mean that every "radical idea" can be abruptly dismissed.
Unlike actual pseudoscientists (see the "Vaccines cause autism!" crowd for an example of pseudoscience at its insidious worst), you don't see the SENS folks claiming that their ideas are already scientifically proven and that they ought to be taken as such based on what amounts to anecdotal evidence in a lot of cases. You don't see anyone from the SENS realm claiming that the SENS proposal ought to be blindly "accepted".
Rather, all SENS is suggesting is that perhaps an engineering approach to addressing senescence is potentially worthy of further investigation. This is where I think a lot of the SENS detractors are missing the point.
As an engineer myself, I may not have the biological background to be able to scrutinize SENS in terms of its assertions about DNA mutations and "intracellular junk", but I do recognize an engineering proposal when I see it. As Dr. Rodney Brooks, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, noted:
I will consider it a lovely day indeed when we have two or three different scientific / engineering proposals at hand, all focused on addressing senescence, and all relentlessly criticizing the ideas and methodology of the others.
As a community of scientists, engineers, philosophers, and curious laypersons, I think that we have an imperative to move beyond petty playground squabbles when addressing interesting and potentially significant ideas. In an era where chimpanzees are playing Pac-Man, the least we can do is work on not flinging droppings at one another in lieu of civilized discourse.
In some ways, this contest isn't even about life extension, but rather about the social implications of technology and the process by which new ideas are examined and critiqued. As we move into the emerging future, it is quite likely that our methods for evaluating ideas will need to evolve, just as our science and ethics must symbiotically evolve.
I am happy to note that none of the challenge submissions met the contest criteria: that of demonstrating that the SENS proposal -- Dr. Aubrey De Grey's outline of a strategic engineering approach to address human senescence -- is "so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate". A number of sites and blogs have already commented on this turn of events; Reason has compiled a nice list of the coverage so far, but I am sure that commentary will continue.
I highly recommend reading the full article in Technology Review, as well as as many blog entries and discussion threads on this matter that you are inclined to. While the results of this challenge in no way imply that SENS will actually extend any lives, I think that these results are an important step in the journey toward safe and effective life-extension medicine.
The judges' comments as quoted in Technology Review seemed quite reasonable and professional: not gushingly optimistic, nor gloomily pessimistic.
Some scientists react very negatively toward those who seek to claim the mantle of scientific authority for ideas that have not yet been proved. Estep et al. seem to have this philosophy. They raise many reasons to doubt SENS. Their submission does the best job in that regard. But at the same time, they are too quick to engage in name-calling, labeling ideas as 'pseudo-scientific' or 'unscientific' that they cannot really demonstrate are so.
The Estep et al. submission (Life Extension Pseudoscience and the SENS Plan Abstract) certainly seems to be receiving the most attention in the aftermath of the judges' decision, and for good reason -- this submission, while not deemed capable of discrediting SENS, did seem to impress Technology Review to the point where its authors were awarded a "consolation prize" of $10,000. Supposedly this consolation prize was in recognition of what Technology Review called "careful scholarship". It is true that the Estep et al. paper went further than the others in terms of directly addressing the technical aspects of SENS, and this is definitely respectable work.
I can only hope that the technical criticism is the reason for the payout by Technology Review, because in my mind the Estep et al. submission was seriously crippled by its initial focus on defining pseudoscience and launching what seem to be the requisite cracks at Aubrey de Grey. ("Aubrey de Grey is not the first, nor will he be the last, to promote a hopelessly insufficient but ably camouflaged pipe-dream to the hopeful many.")
In some ways, I think that the Estep et al. submission highlights an apparent tripwire in the terms of the challenge itself. After all, how can one prove something to be "unworthy of learned debate" by engaging in learned debate? Nevertheless, I would still say that this is an apparent tripwire since Estep et al. could have chosen to simply go directly to the ideas presented in SENS and attack them on their (lack of?) technical merit. I think that the outcome of this contest serves as an important admonition to scientists that when they are told to criticize an idea, they focus on the idea itself and not an attempted psychoanalysis of those who propose the idea.
I am still not sure what people think de Grey is actually up to -- from what I have observed, he doesn't seem to have any desire to create a cult of worshippers or to mislead people into thinking that he is somehow going to become their savior. Rather, he is presenting an idea and saying, "Hey, here's an idea, now let's critically examine it and see if we can do anything about aging, because let's face it, there are at least a few people on Earth who really don't relish the idea of deterioration followed by nonexistence."
The judges also note, importantly, that:
We need to remember that all hypotheses go through a stage where one or a small number of investigators believe something and others raise doubts. The conventional wisdom is usually correct. But while most radical ideas are in fact wrong, it is a hallmark of the scientific process that it is fair about considering new propositions; every now and then, radical ideas turn out to be true. Indeed, these exceptions are often the most momentous discoveries in science.
This statement does exhibit shades of the Galileo Gambit but as I pointed out in this entry, the fact that much of pseudoscience tends to be promoted on the basis that sometimes radical ideas turn out to be true does not mean that every "radical idea" can be abruptly dismissed.
Unlike actual pseudoscientists (see the "Vaccines cause autism!" crowd for an example of pseudoscience at its insidious worst), you don't see the SENS folks claiming that their ideas are already scientifically proven and that they ought to be taken as such based on what amounts to anecdotal evidence in a lot of cases. You don't see anyone from the SENS realm claiming that the SENS proposal ought to be blindly "accepted".
Rather, all SENS is suggesting is that perhaps an engineering approach to addressing senescence is potentially worthy of further investigation. This is where I think a lot of the SENS detractors are missing the point.
As an engineer myself, I may not have the biological background to be able to scrutinize SENS in terms of its assertions about DNA mutations and "intracellular junk", but I do recognize an engineering proposal when I see it. As Dr. Rodney Brooks, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, noted:
I have no confidence that they (SENS detractors) understand engineering, and some of their criticisms are poor criticisms of a legitimate engineering process.
I will consider it a lovely day indeed when we have two or three different scientific / engineering proposals at hand, all focused on addressing senescence, and all relentlessly criticizing the ideas and methodology of the others.
As a community of scientists, engineers, philosophers, and curious laypersons, I think that we have an imperative to move beyond petty playground squabbles when addressing interesting and potentially significant ideas. In an era where chimpanzees are playing Pac-Man, the least we can do is work on not flinging droppings at one another in lieu of civilized discourse.
In some ways, this contest isn't even about life extension, but rather about the social implications of technology and the process by which new ideas are examined and critiqued. As we move into the emerging future, it is quite likely that our methods for evaluating ideas will need to evolve, just as our science and ethics must symbiotically evolve.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Whose Time Is It Anyway?
The paragraphs Reason quoted in this recent post are quoted here again for convenience:
Transhumanism is mostly an intellectual game, a fantasy. The technological breakthroughs necessary to create a true post-humanity will almost surely never come.
...
All of the fantasizing about living forever and morphing into "post-biological units" won't change the hard fact that we are born to die. Far better, then, to embrace our fully human lives than to seek in vain for a post-human future that will never come. (from Wesley J. Smith)
The problem with transhumanism is not merely in the details, or even in the likelihood that many of these technologies will never see the light of day. Indeed, the real problem is that the very urge and desire to eclipse human limitations is an act of defiance grounded in profound ingratitude. At the core of transhumanism is a basic hatred of humanity. The true humanists are those who accept with gratitude the gift of true humanity. (from Albert Mohler)
Hopefully it is acceptable for me to make use of Reason's interesting finds here, and offer my own comments on these quotes and the associated attitudes.
In my estimation, the above quotes are little more than empty rhetoric being spoon-fed to a particular target audience -- the audience comprised of people who, for some yet-unexplainable reason, are dead set (no pun intended) on trying to pass judgement on the way others choose to spend their time.
If we are "born to die", why do we bother working on cancer treatments and therapies for heart disease? Why trifle with antibiotics? Why, somehow, is one form of suffering that leads to death (senescence) something that should be embraced and accepted, whereas other forms of fatal infirmity are approved for elimination by means of the best medical technologies available?
Statements like, "the hard fact that we are born to die" are an appeal to certainty-worship. But not all of us need certainty in order to consider a goal worth pursuing.
If I want to pursue life extension and support the research pertaining to such ends, why is that somehow "not fully embracing human life"? It's not as if learning about, researching, or even eventually seeking a career more closely aligned with gerontology or aging research comprises some sort of wasted existence. Even if my generation doesn't manage to achieve radically extended lives, we always have cryonics as backup -- and plus, whatever work those of us alive today engage in has the potential to benefit future generations.
Contrary to popular rumor, seeking to advance life extension technology is not rooted in personal hubris. I am fully prepared to accept my own place in the freezing chamber, and I'm also perfectly aware that there is absolutely no guarantee that any of the technologies I'm trying to hasten will come to pass in time for me to actually make use of them. I don't need guarantees. I just need opportunities and information and the experience of learning and being alive.
As an engineer by trade and perhaps by nature, I like attacking hard problems. And I don't appreciate being told, by people that should know better, which problems are "too hard" and therefore not even worth pursuing. People who purport to be, or present themselves as, intellectuals should understand very well the drive to discover, learn, observe, and create that lies at the heart of transhumanism. It's not about pride or fear, but rather about wanting to push the limits of our own experience and capacity.
Some people seem to forget that studying and attempting to remediate aging, and engaging in other transhumanist pursuits, means that we are learning more and more about human biology and psychology and evolution overall. The information obtained through life extension research could have tremendous applications to issues not even directly related to addressing senescence, but to the treatment of other deadly conditions. And of course, there is the fact that medical research in all areas of human biology could potentially lend data useful in anti-aging technologies.
I'm also confused by Mr. Mohler's assertion that transhumanism is grounded in "ingratitude". To whom, or what, are we supposed to have gratitude? For those of us that are atheists, I don't think there is any particular reason for us to feel compelled to thank anyone (aside from possibly our parents) for bringing us into the world.
Should we also feel gratitude for cancer and heart disease? Why should anyone feel "gratitude" for something (like aging) that is nothing more than an impersonal killer?
It really is uncanny how much this death-worship rhetoric sounds so much like the diatribes one hears from "young earth creationists" and their ilk: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (except perhaps a reminder of the fact that a lot of memetic engineering needs to take place before healthy life extension becomes a respected goal!)
I'll apply the same argument to those who oppose life extension that I'd apply to anyone who opposed same-sex marriage: if you don't like it, don't do it!
Transhumanism is mostly an intellectual game, a fantasy. The technological breakthroughs necessary to create a true post-humanity will almost surely never come.
...
All of the fantasizing about living forever and morphing into "post-biological units" won't change the hard fact that we are born to die. Far better, then, to embrace our fully human lives than to seek in vain for a post-human future that will never come. (from Wesley J. Smith)
The problem with transhumanism is not merely in the details, or even in the likelihood that many of these technologies will never see the light of day. Indeed, the real problem is that the very urge and desire to eclipse human limitations is an act of defiance grounded in profound ingratitude. At the core of transhumanism is a basic hatred of humanity. The true humanists are those who accept with gratitude the gift of true humanity. (from Albert Mohler)
Hopefully it is acceptable for me to make use of Reason's interesting finds here, and offer my own comments on these quotes and the associated attitudes.
In my estimation, the above quotes are little more than empty rhetoric being spoon-fed to a particular target audience -- the audience comprised of people who, for some yet-unexplainable reason, are dead set (no pun intended) on trying to pass judgement on the way others choose to spend their time.
If we are "born to die", why do we bother working on cancer treatments and therapies for heart disease? Why trifle with antibiotics? Why, somehow, is one form of suffering that leads to death (senescence) something that should be embraced and accepted, whereas other forms of fatal infirmity are approved for elimination by means of the best medical technologies available?
Statements like, "the hard fact that we are born to die" are an appeal to certainty-worship. But not all of us need certainty in order to consider a goal worth pursuing.
If I want to pursue life extension and support the research pertaining to such ends, why is that somehow "not fully embracing human life"? It's not as if learning about, researching, or even eventually seeking a career more closely aligned with gerontology or aging research comprises some sort of wasted existence. Even if my generation doesn't manage to achieve radically extended lives, we always have cryonics as backup -- and plus, whatever work those of us alive today engage in has the potential to benefit future generations.
Contrary to popular rumor, seeking to advance life extension technology is not rooted in personal hubris. I am fully prepared to accept my own place in the freezing chamber, and I'm also perfectly aware that there is absolutely no guarantee that any of the technologies I'm trying to hasten will come to pass in time for me to actually make use of them. I don't need guarantees. I just need opportunities and information and the experience of learning and being alive.
As an engineer by trade and perhaps by nature, I like attacking hard problems. And I don't appreciate being told, by people that should know better, which problems are "too hard" and therefore not even worth pursuing. People who purport to be, or present themselves as, intellectuals should understand very well the drive to discover, learn, observe, and create that lies at the heart of transhumanism. It's not about pride or fear, but rather about wanting to push the limits of our own experience and capacity.
Some people seem to forget that studying and attempting to remediate aging, and engaging in other transhumanist pursuits, means that we are learning more and more about human biology and psychology and evolution overall. The information obtained through life extension research could have tremendous applications to issues not even directly related to addressing senescence, but to the treatment of other deadly conditions. And of course, there is the fact that medical research in all areas of human biology could potentially lend data useful in anti-aging technologies.
I'm also confused by Mr. Mohler's assertion that transhumanism is grounded in "ingratitude". To whom, or what, are we supposed to have gratitude? For those of us that are atheists, I don't think there is any particular reason for us to feel compelled to thank anyone (aside from possibly our parents) for bringing us into the world.
Should we also feel gratitude for cancer and heart disease? Why should anyone feel "gratitude" for something (like aging) that is nothing more than an impersonal killer?
It really is uncanny how much this death-worship rhetoric sounds so much like the diatribes one hears from "young earth creationists" and their ilk: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (except perhaps a reminder of the fact that a lot of memetic engineering needs to take place before healthy life extension becomes a respected goal!)
I'll apply the same argument to those who oppose life extension that I'd apply to anyone who opposed same-sex marriage: if you don't like it, don't do it!
Defending My Own Personhood?
A free posthuman future must necessarily entail a policy of respect for the decisions of those around us. And if we proclaim "reproductive choice" as a virtue, we must avoid legislating undue limits on this choice. Consider the case of a three-armed infant born recently in China.
This child's functional third arm was removed -- not because it posed any sort of health risk, but because it didn't look normal. Wanting to provide children with a good basic set of initial conditions does not, and should not, be confused with a desire to make a person resemble the majority, whether in phenotype or cognitive functioning. I'd challenge anyone reading this to come up with a decent and coherent definition of a "default brain" or "default body".
What I'm worried about is legislation against "abnormality" rather than (potential) legislation against actual abuses of reproductive technology. There are a few real potential abuses here, such as:
- The potential for religious cults to possibly attempt to engineer gullibility into the children of cult members
- The potential to purposely create short-lived children for the whims of parents who wish to look like martyrs.
Obviously, these sorts of things given in the above examples ought to be discouraged and action may need to be taken to prevent these things. And lest you think this is an exaggeration, consider the case of Munchausen by Proxy syndrome, which is a particular pattern of abuse which can manifest itself in a parent's deliberately sickening their child.
This is the sort of thing that transhumanists ought to be worried about, in the sense of determining what sorts of regulation might apply to reproductive and genetic technologies meant to influence the characteristics of future generations.
This is why I worry when I come across comments like the following, from people I like and respect:
Specifying what it is that we value about humanness would also allow us to regulate biotechnology to protect that, and allow individual choice on the rest. Rationality and emotional complexity what makes us human? Great - nobody will be allowed to make themselves developmentally disabled or autistic.
The above is a quote from Dr. James Hughes, whom I met at the Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights conference at Stanford this past May. The article from which this quote comes is rather old -- having been posted back in 2004 -- so I can only hope that Dr. Hughes has changed his views since then, or that this was a frivolous and off-the-cuff remark.
Dr. Hughes, if you are reading this, I would like to know how I as a person on the autism spectrum ought to respond to a statement that essentially states that I lack crucial personhood attributes.
And before anyone makes the "but YOU'RE one of the High Functioning Ones!" argument, I'll say this -- while I realize that people have a lot of differing opinions on "functioning labels" and that due to my education and writing ability I might be classified by many as "high functioning", bear in mind that you have no idea what my early childhood development was like -- when I was four years old, nobody knew what sort of future I'd end up having. If the wrong person had seen me at the wrong time, I may have ended up institutionalized. Luckily, my father would never have let that happen, but there were some people who actually suggested such a thing.
In my experience, most autistics seem to defy classification according to "high" or "low" functioning designations; it isn't just a matter of "these people can speak and these cannot", or even "these people can take care of themselves and these cannot", but rather, a matter of in which circumstances certain activities become possible. There are some things I can only do sometimes (that other people tend to find very easy to do consistently), and other things I can do consistently (that other people tend to have tremendous difficulty with) -- who is to say which skills are "better" or more intrinsically valuable?
It is also a matter of recognizing that everyone living IN a society is dependent on certain aspects of their culture and environment.
For those who call themselves capable of "independent living", I'd like to see you survive a month without clothing made by other people, food grown and harvested by other people, vehicles built by other people, dwellings built by other people -- and the list could keep going, but it seems that many of the arguments against the very existence of autistic people tend to be associated with very narrow normative concepts of "independence". The fact of the matter is that the lone, unadulterated, naked human is a very vulnerable and "disadvantaged" creature, regardless of neurology.
We are all born into what amounts to a prosthetic "body" consisting of an evolving amalgamation of clothing, culture, education, technology, tradition, and sensory feedback. Even as we work toward learning to help cure deadly diseases and conditions -- things that actually limit a person's very viability -- I am under the distinct impression that nonfatal variations will actually become far more trivial, and that whenever we notice a nonfatal variation in a person it ought to be very carefully considered and examined prior to being deemed completely undesirable.
This isn't about wanting to remain "natural" or resist progress -- it's about recognizing the validity of different states of being.
Dr. Hughes -- from what (admittedly little) you know of me, based on meeting me once and commenting on my blog once, would you really assert that I lack rationality or emotional complexity?
I am not trying to be unduly confrontational and I am certainly not angry at any particular person -- what I am angry at is the proliferation of attitudes that result in such remarks being made. When I come across statements such as the one quoted above, I don't think it is productive to throw an emotional temper tantrum in response, but rather, the proper thing to do is assume that the person who made the statement was simply not thinking very carefully when the statement was made -- and to suggest open dialogue on the matter that might help clear up any misconceptions.
Transhumanists need to be very careful of proclaiming the values of diversity and decrying the horrors of "human-racism" yet at the same time using stereotypes and what are probably very superficial observations to disqualify a particular manifestation of sentience from acknowledgement as valid. Because you have difficulty communicating with someone or interpreting their behavior does not mean that they are not thinking rationally or experiencing complex emotions. Please try to remember this. To quote Jim Sinclair:
I am certainly open to rational and civil discourse on this matter, but I must say that it feels very surreal to be in a position of having to defend the validity of my own conscious experience!
Do I need to pass a Turing test, or what?
This child's functional third arm was removed -- not because it posed any sort of health risk, but because it didn't look normal. Wanting to provide children with a good basic set of initial conditions does not, and should not, be confused with a desire to make a person resemble the majority, whether in phenotype or cognitive functioning. I'd challenge anyone reading this to come up with a decent and coherent definition of a "default brain" or "default body".
What I'm worried about is legislation against "abnormality" rather than (potential) legislation against actual abuses of reproductive technology. There are a few real potential abuses here, such as:
- The potential for religious cults to possibly attempt to engineer gullibility into the children of cult members
- The potential to purposely create short-lived children for the whims of parents who wish to look like martyrs.
Obviously, these sorts of things given in the above examples ought to be discouraged and action may need to be taken to prevent these things. And lest you think this is an exaggeration, consider the case of Munchausen by Proxy syndrome, which is a particular pattern of abuse which can manifest itself in a parent's deliberately sickening their child.
This is the sort of thing that transhumanists ought to be worried about, in the sense of determining what sorts of regulation might apply to reproductive and genetic technologies meant to influence the characteristics of future generations.
This is why I worry when I come across comments like the following, from people I like and respect:
Specifying what it is that we value about humanness would also allow us to regulate biotechnology to protect that, and allow individual choice on the rest. Rationality and emotional complexity what makes us human? Great - nobody will be allowed to make themselves developmentally disabled or autistic.
The above is a quote from Dr. James Hughes, whom I met at the Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights conference at Stanford this past May. The article from which this quote comes is rather old -- having been posted back in 2004 -- so I can only hope that Dr. Hughes has changed his views since then, or that this was a frivolous and off-the-cuff remark.
Dr. Hughes, if you are reading this, I would like to know how I as a person on the autism spectrum ought to respond to a statement that essentially states that I lack crucial personhood attributes.
And before anyone makes the "but YOU'RE one of the High Functioning Ones!" argument, I'll say this -- while I realize that people have a lot of differing opinions on "functioning labels" and that due to my education and writing ability I might be classified by many as "high functioning", bear in mind that you have no idea what my early childhood development was like -- when I was four years old, nobody knew what sort of future I'd end up having. If the wrong person had seen me at the wrong time, I may have ended up institutionalized. Luckily, my father would never have let that happen, but there were some people who actually suggested such a thing.
In my experience, most autistics seem to defy classification according to "high" or "low" functioning designations; it isn't just a matter of "these people can speak and these cannot", or even "these people can take care of themselves and these cannot", but rather, a matter of in which circumstances certain activities become possible. There are some things I can only do sometimes (that other people tend to find very easy to do consistently), and other things I can do consistently (that other people tend to have tremendous difficulty with) -- who is to say which skills are "better" or more intrinsically valuable?
It is also a matter of recognizing that everyone living IN a society is dependent on certain aspects of their culture and environment.
For those who call themselves capable of "independent living", I'd like to see you survive a month without clothing made by other people, food grown and harvested by other people, vehicles built by other people, dwellings built by other people -- and the list could keep going, but it seems that many of the arguments against the very existence of autistic people tend to be associated with very narrow normative concepts of "independence". The fact of the matter is that the lone, unadulterated, naked human is a very vulnerable and "disadvantaged" creature, regardless of neurology.
We are all born into what amounts to a prosthetic "body" consisting of an evolving amalgamation of clothing, culture, education, technology, tradition, and sensory feedback. Even as we work toward learning to help cure deadly diseases and conditions -- things that actually limit a person's very viability -- I am under the distinct impression that nonfatal variations will actually become far more trivial, and that whenever we notice a nonfatal variation in a person it ought to be very carefully considered and examined prior to being deemed completely undesirable.
This isn't about wanting to remain "natural" or resist progress -- it's about recognizing the validity of different states of being.
Dr. Hughes -- from what (admittedly little) you know of me, based on meeting me once and commenting on my blog once, would you really assert that I lack rationality or emotional complexity?
I am not trying to be unduly confrontational and I am certainly not angry at any particular person -- what I am angry at is the proliferation of attitudes that result in such remarks being made. When I come across statements such as the one quoted above, I don't think it is productive to throw an emotional temper tantrum in response, but rather, the proper thing to do is assume that the person who made the statement was simply not thinking very carefully when the statement was made -- and to suggest open dialogue on the matter that might help clear up any misconceptions.
Transhumanists need to be very careful of proclaiming the values of diversity and decrying the horrors of "human-racism" yet at the same time using stereotypes and what are probably very superficial observations to disqualify a particular manifestation of sentience from acknowledgement as valid. Because you have difficulty communicating with someone or interpreting their behavior does not mean that they are not thinking rationally or experiencing complex emotions. Please try to remember this. To quote Jim Sinclair:
Yes, that takes more work than relating to a non-autistic person. But it can be done--unless non-autistic people are far more limited than we are in their capacity to relate. We spend our entire lives doing it. Each of us who does learn to talk to you, each of us who manages to function at all in your society, each of us who manages to reach out and make a connection with you, is operating in alien territory, making contact with alien beings. We spend our entire lives doing this. And then you tell us that we can't relate.
I am certainly open to rational and civil discourse on this matter, but I must say that it feels very surreal to be in a position of having to defend the validity of my own conscious experience!
Do I need to pass a Turing test, or what?
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