Simon Young (3)

I heartily agree with Young when he says that _Homo sapiens_ (or elements thereof) should use science to control its own future evolution so as to foster the emergence of a successor species, one that would be free of such scourges as theism and short lifespans. The "bio-Luddites" who oppose this idea exhibit "malanthropy, hubraphobia, entelephobia, noophobia, sciphobia, technophobia, and euphobia." (You wouldn't want to suffer from any of those, would you? [!]) Much of the book seeks to provide "an outline of transhumanism as a totalized philosophical system in the Western tradition."
Young makes things harder for himself, it seems to me, by taking a libertarian political stance, and thus adopting a too-positive view of humanity as it is now. (Libertarians, apart from "socialist libertarians" such as Chomsky and me [?!], fail to recognize that strong government is needed to protect people from each other.) The case for transhumanism becomes even stronger when present-era humanity's incorrigible cussedness is conceded.
Another bothersome contention of Young's is that a certain _dualist_ position on the mind/brain issue is correct, albeit not the ridiculous immortal-souls variety of dualism. I have always found anti-dualism arguments, such as those of philosopher Daniel Dennett, to be completely convincing. On the other hand, I am also sympathetic to the idea that the mind is, in principle, copiable and/or uploadable, and authors such as Young and roboticist Hans Moravec claim that copiability/uploadability entails (a kind of) dualism. I wonder if they are right, and I wonder how Dennett would answer them. (Dennett is friendly toward strong AI, which contemplates the possibility of artificial consciousness and, I would think, copiability/uploadability.) Maybe it's all nothing but arbitrary terminology, but I sure don't want to be classed as any kind of dualist if it's at all avoidable.… (mehr)