Posted on 02/24/2003 2:59:39 PM PST by B-Chan
From "TransExodus: The Enduring Secular Reformation, Pluralist Transhumanism, and Posthuman Pilgrims", by George P. Dvorsky, February 16, 2003:
A large community of genetically modified posthumans and fyborgs, fed up with antiquated and restrictive biolegislation, depart Earth to parts unknown. Similarly, a group of clones, hoping to flee religious persecution and threats from terrorists, build a spacecraft and head to Rigel Kentaurus. And unnerved by the revivalist turn taken by the World Government and its parliamentary human majority, an entire population of cyborgs permanently upload themselves into a secure and massive supercomputer on Titan and establish an isolationist polis of their own.Men like gods. Again. I guess we'll never learn.[ ... ]
The next few decades will witness revolutions in genetics, the cognitive and neurological sciences, robotics, artificial intelligence, supercomputing, computer simulations, virtual reality, and materials technology, including nanotechnology. Of equal significance will be the rise of burgeoning and converging disciplines, including memetics and memetic engineering, evolutionary psychology, psychohistory, applied game theory and experimental economics and politics.
[ ... ]
Rodney Brooks and Steven Mann contend that the bulk of humanity will transform into cyborgs. Ray Kurzweil argues that humans will eventually merge with their machines and upload their minds to computers. Hans Moravec suggests that robots are the future, and that humanity will enter into an era of automation and (quite literally) permanent retirement. Gregory Stock suggests that humanity will do none of these things, as humans will eventually have exquisite command over the genome and consciously choose to remain biological, while some will opt to become posthuman fyborgs (functional cyborgs).
[ ... ]
Personally, I believe there's some truth to all these predictions; different visions and proclivities will lead to different morphologies. And different morphologies will lead to different sociocultural and political needs. But with needs come demands and expectations. A number of posthumans will be in for a great disappointment as they find themselves in a less than accommodating, and possibly hostile, world. Again, history provides us with a germane example to assist us in our attempt to predict the future.
What was true for the atheist/materialist Nietzschean of the 19th Century is true for the atheist/materialist Transhumanist of today: in the end, there is nothing left for them but the Abyss, staring back at them through a computer screen.
(And, of course the Will to Power.)
If all there is to a man is animated dust, then to animated dust he shall return; the snake eats its tail and is no more. Six thousand years of culture, and for what -- to end up as superpowered ghosts in a superpowered machine?
Pathetic.
Complete article (sad and funny and scary all at once)
(They're right, you know: the Church will fight them every inch of the way.)
Paging C.S. Lewis: the Abolition of Man you foresaw all those years ago, its hour come round at last, is slouching towards Bethlehem to be born. Pray for us.
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