{"id":1535,"date":"2009-12-13T08:39:40","date_gmt":"2009-12-13T08:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/transhumanism-personal-immortality-and-the-prospect-of-technologically-enabled-utopia\/"},"modified":"2009-12-13T08:39:40","modified_gmt":"2009-12-13T08:39:40","slug":"transhumanism-personal-immortality-and-the-prospect-of-technologically-enabled-utopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/transhuman\/transhumanism-personal-immortality-and-the-prospect-of-technologically-enabled-utopia.php","title":{"rendered":"Transhumanism, personal immortality and the prospect of technologically enabled utopia"},"content":{"rendered":"

We live in a universe that works on physical laws - simple rules that determine how quantum mechanical amplitude evolves over time. The universe is, at its lowest level, rather like a lego kit with a comparatively small number of bricks, or to put it another way, the universe is a lot like Conway's Game of Life<\/a>. This surprising (and highly counterintuitive) fact has an even more surprising implication: there is no fundamental law that prevents us from improving our lives to arbitrarily high levels of personal well-being. There is no fundamental reason why we cannot create a utopia - to shape the little blocks that the universe is made out of into an arrangement that satisfies our true desires to the maximal extent possible.<\/p>

Death is not a fundamental fact of existence, it is not a deliberate plan hatched by a careful creator who works in mysterious ways, it is not a punishment or a way to teach us a lesson. It is simply an accident of evolution, and it is perfectly possible (in principle!) to get rid of that particular accident. Likewise human suffering: from the minor annoyances to the agony of losing a loved-one or being betrayed by a friend or partner. Likewise the problems that we humans probably don't even realize that we have, because they are as ubiquitous and invisible to us as water is to a fish. Likewise the extreme suffering of the poorest 1 billion humans.<\/p>

Transhumanism<\/em> is simply the idea that we can and should<\/em> use technology to enable human beings to live the lives that they would, upon reflection, choose. Nick Bostrom put this set of ideas particularly eloquently in his Letter from Utopia:<\/a><\/p>

How can I tell you about Utopia and not leave you nonplussed? What words could convey the wonder? What inflections express our happiness? What points overcome your skepticism? My pen, I fear, is as unequal to the task as if I had tried to use it against a charging elephant.<\/p>

Have you ever known a moment of bliss? On the rapids of inspiration, maybe, where your hands were guided by a greater force to trace the shapes of truth and beauty? Or perhaps you found such a moment in the ecstasy of love? Or in a glorious success achieved with good friends? Or in splendid conversation on a vine-overhung terrace one star-appointed night? Or perhaps there was a song or a melody that smuggled itself into your heart, setting it alight with kaleidoscopic emotion? Or during worship?<\/p>

If you have experienced such a moment, experienced the best type of such a moment, then a certain idle but sincere thought may have presented itself to you: “Oh Heaven! I didn’t realize it could feel like this. This is on a different level, so very much more real and worthwhile. Why can’t it be like this always? Why must good times end? I was sleeping; now I am awake.”<\/p><\/blockquote>

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We live in a universe that works on physical laws - simple rules that determine how quantum mechanical amplitude evolves over time. The universe is, at its lowest level, rather like a lego kit with a comparatively small number of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transhuman"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}