Transhumanism

[TexMex477]

One could rewind back 50, or hell 100 years, and just read the letters of many people.. not scholars or nobles.. but average couples and family members.. and see how intelligent they came across. There's a lot to be said for simple literacy and the impact it has.

 

 

Its the lowering of the average IQ.

Much in the same way obesity levels rise as less manual labor is needed

Intelligence decreases as fewer people see the need. Really the current education system is not credit to making people intelligent but more to teaching people authority.

There is other reasons IQ are on decrease which I hesitate to mention because of censorship/fascism of the UK/EU and this being UK/EU host.

 

But back to topic

 

What do the rest of you think about fundamentally changing a persons brain though?

If a brain is what makes us who we are, are you not no longer who you are?

If error is to human , by removing errors is it still human?

Edited August 14, 2017 by TexMex477

[Beriallord]

 

One could rewind back 50, or hell 100 years, and just read the letters of many people.. not scholars or nobles.. but average couples and family members.. and see how intelligent they came across. There's a lot to be said for simple literacy and the impact it has.

 

 

Part of the reason, is that our education system has gotten worse.

 

[wonkehcheetah]

The way I see it, humanity has either one of three ends, it will either die as any other species does, or we will evolve until we are no longer the same as we are now, or we will somehow continue humanity's constant struggle despite all odds regardless of how small it may be. I feel this stage in our existence, the stage we begin to take evolution into our own hands, will be the most monumental and difficult hurdle humanity has ever faced, and if we fail to wrangle all that has held us back, we will only guarantee our people will fade into the voids of time alone.

 

The first step is to define what makes us human? Is it our physiology? Or is it our 'human nature'? In the end, I feel that what makes us human is our culture, our stories, our art. The different ways in which we express ourselves, and our freedom in our ability to do so, and I feel that without that, we simply wouldn't be ourselves. The way I see it, If we preserve that part of us, whether we are simply bio-mechanical beings or sentient code living within a simulated reality intertwined across a quantum network of computers spanning galaxies, Humanity will have never truly died, as our ability to dream, our desire to persevere, to explore and experience existence itself will still live within us.

 

The second step would simply getting us there, however I can imagine that will be much easier said than done. I feel that human nature itself will be our most monumental and difficult challenge we will face. I see human nature as a outdated philosophy that served us well during the age of scarcity, when stealing your neighbors food had a tangible difference between life and death, when having morals and laws would simply hold back ones ability to survive. Nowadays, that is rarely the case. We produce enough food to feed the planet, yet people still starve. We would have more than enough to give to everyone, but a primal addiction to acquiring more and more will simply destabilize and disable any attempt at global cooperation. We could simply throw down all of our weapons and stop fighting, but someone whether out of fear of being attacked first, or a warmongering passion to destroy would take advantage of that peace. Those parts of our mind, our human nature, in an era where our power as a species is growing almost exponentially, is slowly showing further and further its liability to ourselves.

 

Speaking as a hopeless optimist, I feel that we can somehow find the perfect balance. One in which we shed that ugly part of our nature somehow, we destroy the part of us that compels so many of ourselves to deception, to chaos, to endless and insatiable greed. While keeping that curious, cooperative, and expressive side of us intact. I'd like to think that there can come a day, where we still make stories like star wars, or fallout, fictional worlds complex and full of complex motivations, where human nature exists, not as a reality, but as a memory, a memory that we use to better ourselves and expand ourselves, just a we always have. A world where we can live and grow not driven by materials and egos, but driven by a desire to experience, explore, and grow. We would still have and develop weapons, but we wouldn't use them on ourselves, but to defend ourselves against those who would harm us. Transhumanism could bring us all of that, but we'd need to pierce the veil, we'd need to find a way to make it work; and I shudder to imagine a world created, where the expansion of technology never breaks free of that ugly side of ourselves, where our desire to control, acquire, and oppress lies unchecked.