X-Message-Number: 30708
From: 
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:42:34 EDT
Subject: "Transimianism Objections"

I found this both hilarious and a fair metaphor for current objections to  
transhumanism.
 
It is a wee long, about a four minute read for average post-simians, and  
well worth it!   

I don't know who wrote it...could be Aubrey  DeGray, but it is brilliant in 
my book!

Rudi
 


Hi Hava - great to see you  again, even if you remain resolutely
confused about the value of life! Here  is the thing I thought you
should see that demonstrates as only satire can  how indefensible a
general rejection of transhumanism really is. Until next  time!

Cheers,  Aubrey

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/diaz20071216/
The following  was taken from a cave wall painting in southern Tunisia
more than 300,000  years ago. Fossil evidence suggests that the author
was of the species Homo  erectus.

To further expound upon the topic of last week's installment, I  will
address the more specific claims of Dr. Klomp and his radical  theory
that has been gaining wider acceptance throughout the community.  Once
again I would like to thank our readers for sending in your  fish
bones and boar hides in support of this journalist's campaign  to
expose Dr. Klomp's trans-simianist prattle for what it is: a
collection  of wishful thoughts out of keeping with any factual evidence.

The term  'trans-simian' comes from the shortening of 'transitional
simian,' a concept  Dr. Klomp has developed to describe an individual
who is in an evolutionary  transition from simian to post-simian,
though Klomp himself admits that he is  not entirely clear what a true
post-simian would be. Characteristics  exhibited by a trans-simian
include augmentation of one's natural abilities  with 'tools,' as well
as one's mental capacities with what has been dubbed  'culture.'

Klomp's primary argument rests on what he calls the  'Quickening,' an
imagined point somewhere in the future when the advancement  of
'culture' occurs so rapidly that its pace will far exceed that  of
biological evolution. In his own words,

"There will come a time  when within a single generation we will
develop one or possibly even two new  ideas... Current advancements in
the 'bow' and 'arrow' industries suggest an  exponential trend in the
expansion of our technological capacities. We are  able to perform
hunts in a fraction of the time it took our ancestors, thus  freeing
up valuable time to ' think ' of new ideas. In the post-simian  world,
we may develop into a species that is not only  intellectually
superior to our current state, but capable of feats beyond  the
comprehension of a contemporary simian."

Pardon this author for  not holding his breath.

Notice that Klomp cherry-picks discoveries to  better support his
argument of an exponential growth. It took more than a  million years
to develop fire and the hand-ax, and yet Klomp believes  simply
because it took only 2,000 years to develop bows and arrows that  new
inventions will spring up in even shorter timeframes. This theory  is
an expansion of 'Morg's Law,' which states that since a sharpened
rock  can in turn become a chisel to make an even sharper rock, that
the sharpness  of hand-axes will increase exponentially over the span
of tens of thousands  of years. While Morg's Law has so far proven
accurate, Klomp can't escape the  reality that there is an upper
limit, namely that a rock can only become so  sharp. We have already
noticed a slight decline in the growth of hand-ax  sharpness, but
Klomp insists that when the potential of stone axes  becomes
exhausted, new materials will be discovered to replace the rocks  and
continue the exponential trend of sharpness. As of the time of  this
article, however, he has provided no evidence of what these  miracle
rocks are. Klomp also argues that there will come a time when  we
will use tools to create other tools, though naturally this is  a
laughable fiction since there has never been any recorded evidence of
a  tool making another tool, or even any records for that matter.

Another  factor in Klomp's post-simian world is the development of
"abstract thought"  that will be aided by

"the ability to store memories and thoughts outside  our brains onto
physical media, perhaps on flattened tree bark. To achieve  this we
will have to overcome the problem of turning words, which are  sounds,
into things we can see, but given current trends this is  an
engineering issue that will ultimately be resolved. This will be  the
real catalyst for the Quickening, when the memories of one  generation
will literally become immortal and then build upon the memories  of
the next, creating a sort of mass mind that experts in my field  are
calling "history." In the post-simian world our era might even  be
referred to as pre-history."

Here we see Klomp's predictions  descend from unsupported speculation
to sheer fantasy. His recent cave  painting, The Quickening is Near,
explains in great detail different methods  we may employ to transform
words into some kind of visible format, but all  are incomplete. The
simple fact remains that words are sounds, not pictures,  and no
amount of wishing will change that. Even if such a thing  were
possible, it is doubtful that many would wish to store their  memories
externally. This author, for one, would prefer it if his  memories
stayed in his head and not on some cold, lifeless bark.

The  most shocking of Klomp's predictions, however, is that we apes
will have  little or no place in the post-simian world.

"As technological progress  outpaces biology, new selective pressures
will arise that will force our  species to evolve mentally and
physically beyond what we are now. This is the  same trend that gave
rise to our own intelligent species, but it will only  accelerate in
the coming generations. Our new environment increasingly  favors
higher dexterity and intelligence, and so the true post-simian  will
not be an ape at all. It will share some similarities with the
modern  ape, but at the same time possess capacities far beyond our
comprehension.  The thought capacity of a single post-simian could be
greater than the  combined brains of every ape in the world."

More intelligent than an ape?  Klomp fails to explain just what a
post-ape can think of that we mere mortals  cannot. The capacity of
the simian mind is already far beyond any animal in  the world: We
are capable of using speech to let others know where we are,  where to
sleep and eat, and where to find shelter when it rains. Exactly  how
fast do we need our brains to be to figure these things out? When
will  we decide that enough is enough?

Let us assume, for the sake of argument,  that such a post-simian
future is possible or even probable. Is it really a  world we should
want to strive for, where our very ape nature is stripped  away in the
name of efficiency? Technologies such as the bow and arrow  already
desimianize the act of hunting. While our ancestors were able  to
experience the pure ape feeling of clubbing an animal to death with  a
rock, we are left with the cold, sterilized bow that kills cleanly
and  quickly from a safe distance. This separation from basic daily
activities is  a slippery slope. What would happen if we no longer
had to gather fruits and  nuts, and they simply grew wherever we
wanted them, or had drinking water  flow right to our feet instead of
wandering in search of streams for days?  These seeming conveniences
would rob us of what it means to be an  ape.

Klomp predicts that through a technology called 'hygiene' we  could
extend the simian lifespan well into the late 20s or possibly  30s.
What exactly will the post-simian do with all that time? Do we
really  want to live in a society populated by geriatric 27- year-
olds? In living so  long and spending so much time 'thinking,' do we
not also run the risk of  becoming a cold, passionless race incapable
of experiencing our two emotions  (fear and not fear)? How much of
our simianity are we willing to sacrifice  for this notion of progress?

Rest assured that while Klomp may have accru  ed a recent following,
there is no reality to his fantastic claims. What is  concerning is
the increasing number of young apes spending less time  clubbing
animals and more time 'inventing,' 'thinking' and 'creating,' none  of
which contribute to the preservation of the simian way of life.
These  sorts of fads come and go, however, and this author is
confident that in a  short while everyone will have forgotten about
Klomp and the notion of being  anything more than an ape."

-Thog
Professor of Finding an Animal and  then Killing It,
The University of the  Woods





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