Thank you Zak, I totally agree.

My mother died when I was 24 and painful as it was, it also meant a transition in my own life: life suddenly got depth and value in a way it had never had before. I became one of the adults.

Ever since, there has not been a single version of an afterlife or immortality that has appealed to me. In what kind of eternity would I wish for my mother to still exist? Heaven? What a horrible idea: forever in bliss and no way out. Hell might actually be preferable, at least you wouldn't be bored to dea.. - oops. Reincarnation? Would I want my 'mother' to be reborn as someone else? Heck no! Would I want her consciousness to 'live on' in cyberspace or some artificial body and interact with me? Yikes, no! Would I want her to be multiplied an infinite number of times in order for her digital remains to explore what dogs and fish feel? Taking up server capacity along with millions of other dead people? Jesus C***** for f**** sake no!

/ L

On 01-11-2019 02:05, Zachary Stein wrote:
[log in to unmask]">
Returning to this now, moving between doing the dishes and listening to a rain storm. 

Brent, 

You captured my heart with your last thoughts, about the universe taking billions of years to get to humans and then through us waking up and becoming self aware. Of course yes, a thousand times. But I source such a notion in religious traditions, not (only) in scientific ones. Mine is a religious transhumanism, such as Aurobindo and Teilhard. And in this tradition you will find most of my metaphysics, if couched in theological terms. This tradition parts ways from techno-science-optimist transhumanism in how it relates and prioritizes the respective agencies of humans, technologies, and nature. This is a story for another e-mail… 

As for the links to this canonized website, which I was not aware of. As you might imagine, we are still miles apart, and my sense is we are working with different paradigmatic understandings of things like “science” and “metaphysics.” For example, I work with a system in which there are valid ways of understanding the world that are non-scientific, and therefore I see a large class of phenomenon (including consciousness) that cannot be reduced to scientific explanation. This would include all events that can not be measured and/or are unrepeatable. That is a lot of realty that is axiomatically / by definition beyond Popperian “science”. This includes of course the means by which science is justified, i.e., philosophical conversations like we are having now are not a matter of science. The value of science cannot be proven using science. (That you may disagree with this last statement is exactly what I mean by paradigmatic differences in our thinking. If you agree then you would need think about how the part of consciousness that does science is approachable via science… ) 

Note also a near total absence in your response to the socio-political issues raised by Lene and myself. This also confirms my sense that we would need to do some very heavy lifting to get on the same page. It also confirms my sense that transhumanist views often exist within or alongside a covert and inarticulate set of political and economic beliefs. Technology is not some faceless process, like this storm rolling through Vermont tonight. Technology is a part of economic relations between classes, which means it is not about “the power/myth of the machine” it is about other humans, some of whom understand themselves as fit to be our future post-capitalist AI overlords ;-) Many transhumanists have something like Stockholm syndrome as regards this ruling class, so they disguises their agency behind impersonal processes and ontology. But in fact, it’s not simply *humans and their wonderful machines*-- it's *humans vs. humans, only some of whom make/control/have machines* .... 

In any case, that was a long way of saying: Bon Voyage on your transhumanist adventure!


Lene, 

Capital would take from us even the free gift of death. In selling us immortality they would make death a class problem or disease, and into something that can be be "solved.” Even a successful illusion of success in such a project is enough to disrupt the social fabric entirely. (i.e., if the majority believed that some segment of the economic/power elite actually had the biomedical technology to live for centuries (publicized class-based apparent immortality) this would be an unimaginable educational and worldview adjustment problem, *even if it was not actually true* [cue: Ancient Egypt redux]). 

I argue basically the opposite, that the more a society places death within its midst as a common, important, and meaningful (sacred) aspects of life, the longer lived, healthier, and more alive that community will be. Denial of death is living death (Becker et al); embracing death is living life (Hillman).  

Notes I took on Hillman’s classic *Suicide and the Soul,* which I offer here because they are relevant and interesting, and unlikely to otherwise be published: 

--------------

- where considering the death experience 
     from the perspective of psychology/soul;. 
     -  that the death experience has been neglected:. 
      - not studied. 
      - not theorized.
       - only viewed as a medical problem:. 
         - not as an experience of the "soul".
       - that the death experience should not 
         be confused with physical death. 
     - that the psychologist needs a philosophy of death;.
       - that Plato said: 
        - philosophy is the pursuit of death and dying.
        - philosophy is death's rehearsal.
       - that philosophy must think life and death together
         and not as forces in opposition:. 
         - that the day I am born I being to die. 
           - that each event in my life 
             makes a contribution to my death. 
           - that death is entered/pursued continually.
           - that I build my unique death through choice.
              - that all death is a kind of suicide.  
           - that we live in order to die. 
           - that life takes on value through death. 
           - that we do not know if the "soul" dies. 
       - that the death experience 
         can not be put off till old age:. 
        - that organic death has absolute power
          over life when death has not been allowed
          in the midst of life. 
        - that we are obliged to go to death 
         before it comes to us.   
           - that going towards death consciously:. 
            - is a major human achievement. 
            - is admired in religious/cultural heroes.
         - that there is a demand for fullness in life
           satisfied through the death experience. 
          - that until we can say no to life
            we have not really said yes. 
          - that the death experience is needed:. 
            - to discover individuality.
            - to break free/separate 
             from the collective flow of life.  
       - that the more imminent the death experience 
         the more possibility there is for transformation. 
         - that suicide can be:. 
           - a mistaken impulse for radical transformation.
           - a misunderstanding needing the death experience. 
            - a concerte misinterpretation  
              of a psychological necessity.
               - as too radical/pressing a need 
                 on the part of the soul/psyche 
                 for immediate knowing/being with 
                 the Wholly Other. 



On Oct 31, 2019, at 2:42 PM, Lene Rachel Andersen - Nordic Bildung / Fremvirke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I don't want it either. 

Part of maturing is realizing your mortality and not only coming to terms with it but finding great relief and existential depth in it.

One version of hell would be living entirely surrounded by people who think they are going to live forever. 

/ L

On 31-10-2019 19:17, Zachary Stein wrote:
[log in to unmask]" class="">You see, I do not want this: 

 Brent Allsop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 I want my knowledge of my spirit, and all my memories, to live forever in hundreds of different computationally bound brains/bodies, brains that can be aware of not just 3 primary colors, but thousands.....  at trillions the resolution....

I admit that I have an instinctual emotional reaction/revulsion at this idea. That is, this reaction happens *if* I take it as a serious desire. Whereas I mostly take it as something like a grandiose fantasy/fiction to amuse/distract the ego from more serious, real, living desires about ones life and death.

Taken seriously, this transhumanist longing for techno-immortality seems like one of those desires for heaven held by a few that will end up creating hell on Earth for everyone else. We’ve had a lot of these over the course of history. This is why I (and I think Lene) are so concerned. 

Deeper questions: 

Why is it believed to be so bad to simply die, as humans always have? 

Why do we trust our technologies more than nature? 

Why do we want the ego-personality to continue in perpetuity, as if this were a good thing for us personally and for humanity? 


My sense is we should all be preparing to die in the good old fashion way and not mixing science fiction so far into our identities that we forget what is inevitable and real about who and what we are. 

Not really writing this for you, Brent, but for all the techno-optimist transhumanist rationalists who have lodged their adolescent notions into the heart of what might otherwise be a serious public discussion about digital technology and the future of humanity. 

zak

P.S. If you want to “live forever” you will need more than “hundreds” of new bodies. How long to you think “forever" is? 


############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1


Dr. Zachary Stein
www.zakstein.org





On Oct 31, 2019, at 6:42 PM, Brent Allsop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:



Sorry, this part was intended to be before that last post:

 

Lots of laughs.  This could end up being a transhumanist / anti transumanist rant towards each other, both thinking the evidence being presented works better in their favor, than the reverse.

 

For example Zack asked:  “Why do we trust our technologies more than nature?”

 

I think the same argument supports my position much better.  Why do you impose such a limited interpretation of nature?  We, and how we are progressing, exponentially, and have been obviously doing so, unstoppable for millions of years,  in every way, is exactly nature.  Natures has ben working for billions of years, all of it seeking to finally consciousness wake up.  We are what nature has been trying to create for billions of years.  You think all the stuff out there we can see with out telescopes is out there, just to go to waste?  You don’t think it is all just waiting for someone like us to finally emerge so it can all finally “wake up”?

 

“Why is it believed to be so bad to simply die, as humans always have?”

On Thu, Oct 31, 2019 at 4:41 PM Brent Allsop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
To me, this is just obviously irrational and broken thinking, bread into us to help us deal with our obviously devastating mortality.  Do you ever fly? Up until about 100 years ago, nobody ever flew.  Should you also be arguing we wouldn’t be flying, if this argument is legitimate?  Along with everything else we’ve been doing the last 10 years that nobody has ever dreamed we’d be able to do.

 

 

Zak also asked about my beef with solipsism.  This is mostly only a beef with philosophers.  But for those that don’t understand the significance of the argument, are leaving out some significant theoretical possibilities of what we could uncover, as we dig deeper into consciousness.

 

The far more interesting theory is “Substance Dualism”.  As canonizer is proving, there are some very smart people that point out that this theory has in no way been fully falsified.  I think there is a clear scientific consensus, including Dennett, that there are qualia.  The only lack of consensus is the nature of qualia.  Nobody yet has a clue about what qualia are, or that they are even “physical”.  Most everyone agreed with Einstein, when we started looking into quantum mechanics, and figured: “God doesn’t play dice.”  We all know how that turned out.  If we falsify all known physical possibilities of what redness could be, it then must either be some new physics, or some properties of some spiritual realm.  I think people that don’t accept such ideas as real possibilities are missing out on a lot of what consciousness could turn out to be, and what the future holds in the science and engineering of all such.

 

Zak said: “Consciousness cannot be moved between bodies via silicon intermediaries.”  I’m not talking about anything even remotely close to this.  You must not fully understand what I’m talking about when I say “computational binding”.  Qualia are in no way properties of silicon or anything done with silicone, and “computational binding” is the opposite of any kind of “intermediaries”.

 

I’m still struggling with understanding exactly what Zak’s “metaphysical” ideas are, and why any of that would make any of this impossible “period”.  There is a near unanimous consensus that all of consciousness is “approachable via science”.  How could any of this be impossible “period”, if it is all approachable via science?  Once we discover what it is, whatever it is, we will definitely be doing everything we can to amplifying, extending, sending it all out into the universe….  What part of it do you think is impossible “period”?

 

Even at the next level down, “Representational Qualia Theory” where there is almost as much consensus around the general idea that we have qualia, and qualia are physical properties of something in our brain.  It seems to me all of the experts that have discovered and build consensus around this theory would agree that all of this makes everything were talking about, as Chance McDermott said: “seems inevitable...”

 

I’m thinking your metaphysics must disagree with something in the emerging near unanimous consensus that is rapidly developing that is “Approachable via Science” and “Representational Qualia Theory”?  What is it in your metaphysics that makes any of this impossible “period”?

 

Could we get your metaphysics  “canonized”, so everyone can better understand just what this metaphysics is, and how it is different from what is there, and so we can see how many experts agree, compared to competing ideas?

 

And for all you ditheists, if you really think you have some justified rational arguments, we should surely get them canonized here.  So far, no one has been brave enough to make a statement or any justification for being a deathliest.  My thinking is that anyone would think any such arguments would just be thought of as completely insane and irrational.  The thoughts of only crazy people that were about to die.  That’s all anything that has been presented in this thread, seems to me.

 

 


############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1


############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1