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Do transhumanists believe in the soul, or in materialistic reductionism? Or could it be both at the same time?

The Cartesian idea of the spirit or soul as a disembodied presence merely using or occupying a body, rather than the two being integrally connected, is a cardinal principle in transhumanism, the ultimate goal of which is to transcend the limitations of corporeal existence through technology.

So I wrote in my recent review of the transhumanist fantasy Ghost in the Shell, starring Scarlett Johansson. In the combox a longtime reader who goes by Pachyderminator challenged this:

Modern transhumanists tend to hold a scientific materialist worldview, which is often concerned specifically to refute Cartesian dualism and replace it with physical reductionism, which holds that any system can in principle be modeled without loss solely with reference to its lowest-level parts.

This is quite true of many (not all) transhumanists a point I would have noted myselfin a piece on transhumanism. Since I didnt, I thank Pachyderminator for highlighting this point.

This is precisely what makes it so odd that, juxtaposed with this penchant for reductionistic materialism, transhumanist imagination also embraces, at least in its more quasi-religious or existential forms, a Cartesian notion of the self as not bound or defined by the material reality supporting the self a ghost in a shell, as the Japanese franchise, unambiguously an expression of transhumanist imagination, proposes.

The reductionist side of transhumanist thought lies in the notion that the mind, and more fundamentally the self, comprises a system that can be fully replicated, thus becoming equivalent to the original system.

The Cartesian side of transhumanist thought lies in the aspirational hope that replicating the mind and uploading ones memories, thought patterns, etc. can preserve ones identity or self that the me currently residing in my body can be transferred into a completely different form, and this too will be me, continuous with the me I have always been.

Only last week this fantasy was given imaginative expression in an article on transhumanism in the Guardian:

You are lying on an operating table, fully conscious, but rendered otherwise insensible, otherwise incapable of movement. A humanoid machine appears at your side, bowing to its task with ceremonial formality. With a brisk sequence of motions, the machine removes a large panel of bone from the rear of your cranium, before carefully laying its fingers, fine and delicate as a spiders legs, on the viscid surface of your brain. You may be experiencing some misgivings about the procedure at this point. Put them aside, if you can.

Youre in pretty deep with this thing; theres no backing out now. With their high-resolution microscopic receptors, the machine fingers scan the chemical structure of your brain, transferring the data to a powerful computer on the other side of the operating table. They are sinking further into your cerebral matter now, these fingers, scanning deeper and deeper layers of neurons, building a three-dimensional map of their endlessly complex interrelations, all the while creating code to model this activity in the computers hardware. As the work proceeds, another mechanical appendage less delicate, less careful removes the scanned material to a biological waste container for later disposal. This is material you will no longer be needing.

At some point, you become aware that you are no longer present in your body. You observe with sadness, or horror, or detached curiosity the diminishing spasms of that body on the operating table, the last useless convulsions of a discontinued meat.

The animal life is over now. The machine life has begun.

You see how this is imagined to work? The piece posits continuity of consciousness (a first-person experience of self, addressed here in the second person) between you that submits to the operation and the you that at some pointbecome[s] aware that you now exist in another form, leaving behind only discontinued meat. Pure Cartesian imagination.

Crucially, bolstering this mental sleight of hand, the scanning and the consciousness of ones self in the new form is imagined to be simultaneous with a process of destroying what is scanned. If we were to adjust the imaginative scenario so that the scanning process is conceived as non-invasive and non-destructive, you would still have the (imagined) phenomenon of a conscious awareness in a new form but you would also continue to be conscious and aware in your own body.

This alteration reveals that the consciousness we imagine in the machine is in fact a copy of the consciousness in our minds; if I can continue to exist as me in my own body, side by side with the version of me imagined to be in the computer, then I have not escaped or transcended death at all. In this scenario, I would continue to exist in my body for my natural lifespan and then die like anyone else, and the copy of me in the computer would be like a clone with implanted memories, a new self or consciousness based on me, but not me.

As an aside, Christopher Nolans The Prestige explores these implications (in a non-transhumanist cultural context) with his customary ruthlessness. To enjoy Star Trek, on the other hand, we are obliged to ignore the reality that if a viable transporter were ever invented, it wouldnt really transport a person from one place to another; it would kill the original person and create a copy in another location. (The Next Generation comes perilously close to admitting this in the episode where Commander Riker is inadvertently duplicated in a transporter accident, with one version stranded on a deserted planet for years and another version going on to a successful Starfleet career.)

To be sure, there are hard-headed transhumanists who will admit all this, at least in principle. The frankest will admit that, on their own reductionist principles, the notion of a continuous self is an illusion; there is no continuous underlying reality uniting what I call me today and what called itself me yesterday or will call itself me tomorrow. In fact, there is no I or self at all; selfhood itself is a chimera.

On this model, memory fools us all. I have inherited the memories of past iterations of me, which, they say, tricks me into feeling as if or believing that some underlying, continuous reality has had all of these experiences. But this is all unreal. There is no survival of the self from death, but then there is no survival from day to day either, or even from hour to hour.

So they say. Yet they generally believe, for example, in keeping their promises, i.e., promises of which they have inherited memories, though presumably they would not feel bound by promises remembered by what they knew or believed to be false, implanted memories.

Even if they were real promises made by someone else and then copied technologically or telepathically into their minds, they would hold the original promise makers, not themselves, responsible for them. Yet on their own principles its not obvious how the inherited memory of a promise transmitted organically differs from one transmitted from one mind to another.

For that matter, its not clear how much sense the notion of a promise makes at all. A promise creates what we conceive as an obligation for who? Not for me, for by hypothesis I dont exist at all, and certainly I wont exist at the future date when the obligation is held to apply. That will be some other iteration of me, with memories of what I have done to be sure, but the me that made those promises no longer exists, and its far from clear why the me that inherits those memories should be obliged by them.

If artificially transmitted promises dont count, then a consciousness into which all my memories and thought patterns had been poured would be no more bound by my promises than a mind that received them via artificial or telepathic means. But thats another way of saying that the copy of me isnt really me at least, as long as they hold that I am bound by my own promises.

At any rate, such hardheaded materialistic reductionism hardly seems to comport with quasi-religious zeal for achieving immortality through mind uploading. Yet this zeal for immortality is not only often found among those who theoretically acknowledge the illusionary nature of the self, it seems to be an important motive, perhaps even the motive, driving much of the enthusiasm for the transhumanist project in all its forms, technological, biological, cyborganic, etc.

Like a ghost in a shell, a Cartesian notion of the self as an actual, intangible thing lurking inside the biological machines of our bodies, a valuable presence that can be saved from organic frailty and given digital eternal life, coexists anomalously with a reductionistmaterialist view of our cerebral hardware as nothing more than the sum of its parts.

Transhumanists may or may not say out loud that we have no souls, but this doesnt stop them from hoping for the salvation of their souls in a way fundamentally convergent with believers in conventional religions. The main difference isnature of the deity and the hoped-for eschaton.

See also Ghost and the Shell (review)

See the rest here:
Ghosts and Shells: Is Transhumanism Cartesian? - National Catholic Register (blog)

Like many libertarians, I was initially excited when Zoltan Istvan announced his candidacy for Governor of California.

Istvan is the founder of the Transhumanist Party and author of The Transhumanist Wager, which is considered a manifesto on transhumanist philosophy. The basic premise of transhumanism is that the next step in human evolution will be to improve our bodies and expand our lifespan with radical technology, eventually leading towards immortality. While he still needs to obtain the nomination, having someone announce their intents this early gave me hope that maybe the party would have a shot at making an impact in the California mid-terms.

As I learned about his transhumanist ideas, I became increasingly hopeful that his views on radical science and medical technology would be able to appeal to the far-left base of California and introduce a wider range of people to libertarianism. However, after doing some research Im not so sure Istvan is the best candidate to represent the Libertarian party.

On the surface, the former presidential candidate seems to align with the libertarian views of bodily autonomy (transhumanists call it morphological freedom) and the non-aggression principle, he even called himself a left-libertarian on the Rubin Report.

He believes people should be able to use technology to make modifications to their body as they please, if it doesnt harm anyone else. For example, Istvan has a chip implanted in his hand which allows him to open doors in his home and will send texts to a persons phone.

Also within his conversation with Dave Rubin, he discussed regulating industries for artificial intelligence multiple times. He went so far to say I dont believe we should develop artificial intelligence thats unregulated and part of the reason AI remains an unregulated industry is because no one knows how to regulate it.

During his 2016 run for the presidency, part of his platform was to, Create national and global safeguards and programs that protect people against abusive technology and other possible planetary perils we might face as we transition into the transhumanist era.

This type of language reminds one of the paternalism and protect one from themselves legislation typical of todays Democrats and Republicans.

Finally, one of the partys proposals is to adopt a Transhumanist Bill of Rights that would advocate for legal and government support of longer lifespans, better health and higher standards of living via science and technology.

While its not clear what government support would entail, state-funded creation of life-expanding technologies would pale in comparison to what the market could create.

Article I of the Transhumanist Bill of Rights claims that every citizen has a right to technology that reduces suffering, improves upon the body and can give one an infinite life-span, which reminds one of the current leftist agenda claiming healthcare is a basic human right.

The best way to ensure that everyone can have access to the technology that would accomplish Istvans Transhumanist vision, would be to allow private companies to produce these technologies and compete with other firms and bring prices down. As weve seen with universal healthcare, entitling a service to every citizen lowers quality, and increases prices.

While his intentions are noble, requiring access to this kind of technology would decrease the number of people who could obtain it and aggress on a business owners right to sell their product. This is one of many problematic parts of his presidential bid; others included free public education, mandatory college education and preschool, and a sort of affirmative action to create an equal representation of former careers in politicians.

To give the potential candidate some credit, he does oppose the War on Drugs and wants to shrink the size of government through technology.

Istvan seems to be a situational libertarian. While he may appeal to more Californians with his views on science and seeming acceptance of some forms of regulation, he would not be the person the party would need to explain libertarian philosophies and represent us to the masses.

* Luke Henderson is a composer, economics enthusiast, and educator in St. Louis, MO. He is a budding libertarian and joined the party in 2016.

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Read more:
Is Zoltan Istvan a Libertarian? - Being Libertarian