Transhumanists vs. Mysterians on The Posthuman Condition

July 2000. Published in abbreviated form in Feedmag, and full length at www.extropy.org.

This brief essay responds to anti-transhumanist views espoused by Erik Davis in an article that he later elaborated on in his book, Techgnosis. The errors he makes and my responses to them provide a warm-up for the long pieces that follow in this section. A few points on my 2000 essay:

In discussing his apparently “New Mysterian” view of consciousness and self, I note that “Functionalists do not see the subjective and objective views of consciousness as separated by “a necessary and nearly irreducible gap”.” To expand on and clarify this: The subjective sense of consciousness may be irreducible in the sense of being an emergent phenomenon that cannot be entirely reduced to underlying objective, physical elements. But that’s what “subjective” means. An outside, “objective” view is not a subjective view and you cannot reasonably expect a complete objective view of subjective experience.

Even so, the objective view can tell us a tremendous and growing amount about the character of the subjective view. It can even make testable predictions. For example, we can predict that if we electrically stimulate a specific area of the brain, we will produce the subjective sense of a smell, taste, or sound.

Davis says extropians proclaim themselves to be “posthumans”. This assert is clearly false and so, not surprisingly, completely unsupported by citations.

He takes cheap potshots such as when he writes of transhumanists’ “almost adolescent hatred of limitations”. Instead of responding as I did, I could have adopted his approach and ask: What about his psychologically damaged and existentially cowardly obeisance to limitations? Making sweeping claims is unhelpful when they are not backed by any specifics or evidence.

Like too many others, Davis suggests that we look to a “utopian transhumanist paradise” without supporting the assertion and while ignoring the explicit writing to the converse. Since he wrote his piece in the 1990s, transhumanists have increasingly focused on risks and dangers of technology’s as well as the benefits, sometimes even focusing heavily on huge “existential” risks.

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Transhumanists vs. Mysterians on The Posthuman Condition

Erik Davis’s first column on “The Posthuman Condition” contains a deep tension that makes for stimulating reading.[1] On the one hand Davis clearly is fascinated by the “technosciences” that will alter human nature. He follows the tectonic shifts in technology and casts an eye over some of the cultures and philosophies closely associated with them. On the other hand, Davis finds these technologies and the ideas of transhumanists (who welcome these advances) unappealing. Despite the massive advances in neuroscience, genetics, molecular biology, evolutionary biology, etc., he thinks we are no closer to answering the question “Who am I?” today than in the past. Davis appears to be one of the “New Mysterians”a term used by some philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists to refer to mystical and obscurantist views of mind and self.

Transhumanists views cohere well with mainstream functionalism. Functionalists see consciousness as a comprehensible process of certain complex physical systems. Functionalists do not see the subjective and objective views of consciousness as separated by “a necessary and nearly irreducible gap”. (Which is it? Is the gap necessary, or reducible with difficulty?) The very disciplines mentioned by Davis the neurosciences, human-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence, genetics, and evolutionary thinking continue to replace the darkness of self-ignorance with the light of self-knowledge. The New Mysterians see consciousness and self as forever beyond scientific comprehension, perhaps afraid to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge because of the new choices it will bring.

In the first installment of his column, Davis refers to extropians and their intellectual cousins as “self-proclaimed posthumans”. This is simply wrong. Extropians describe themselves as “extropians” or “transhumanists”, since clearly we have not yet transformed our human nature. A few may call themselves “transhumans” to make the point that we are already technologically intervening in human nature. The term “posthuman” refers to what comes after we thoroughly transform human nature, from radical biological changes to postbiological life. No one can sensibly claim to be posthuman today.

Transhumanism is not a condition but a set of ideas that favor using science and technology guided by critical and creative thinking continually to transform the human condition for the better. “Better” means extending our years of vital life indefinitely, augmenting intelligence, refining emotions, developing ethically, and improving economic and social processes. You can think of transhumanism as being the supercharged heir to worn out, uninspiring humanism. Extropians form the largest single “brand” of transhumanism, distinguished in part by favoring voluntarist, decentralized, market approaches to social issues. Extropians are those who assent to the statement of values in The Extropian Principles.

Rather than address extropian views with specifics, Davis resorts to ad hominem slurs. He talks of our “almost adolescent hatred of limitations”. Does Davis think we are mistaken to depart from conventional culture in vigorously opposing aging and death, in aiming to do away with depression, uncontrollable rage and other psychological disorders, and in seeking to abolish infirmity and irrationality and the shortcomings of the mindless results of evolution? Then he should explain why. Since extropians despise centralized control, destructive anti-rationalism, irrational racism, and blind hatred, would he also talk of our “almost adolescent hatred of Nazism”? Perhaps Davis actually intended his “adolescent” comment as a compliment. Smart adolescents are busy growing, learning, developing, and being enthusiastic about their present and future.

Davis is spot on when he stresses the importance of deeply considering the “cultural and psychological consequences of our changing human nature”. His assertion that we ignore such consequences reveals that his research on extropian thinking was shallow. Any time spent on our email lists, checking talks we give (such as my Extro conference talks on altering human motivations and the mistaken cultural assumptions underpinning resistance to transhumanism), reading our public essays, or hearing what we have said on television would belie such an idea.

It is true that, until recently, we have emphasized the positive possibilities more than the potential dangers with new technologies. We have seen no shortage of doomsayers to do that job. More recently we have been reaching out to address public concerns, as seen in responses to Bill Joy’s essay by Ray Kurzweil, Natasha Vita-More, and myself.[2] My book in progress revolves entirely around considering possible consequences and planning ahead for transhumanizing technologies.

Davis sets up a simplistic contrast between the old myth of dehumanizing technology and the “utopian transhuman paradise”. This straw man characterization does a disservice to a vibrant, productive way of thinking about our future. Extropians do not expect a paradise. Paradise is an old myth for those weary of living. Nor do we extol “technological perfectionism” as Davis claims in his book. Paradise and perfectionism belong to religious myths. Extropians do not expect an end to all conflict, struggle, and strife though we certainly desire to reduce those through intelligence, technological progress, and good will. Rather than perfection, extropian thinking embodies a living ideal of continual progress. (Hence our ideals of perpetual progress, pancritical rationalism, self-transformation, and emergent order.) We aim for a constantly evolving and improving “extropia”, not a static utopia.[3]

In a sense I can agree with Davis when he writes that technoscience deepens rather than resolves the contradictions of the posthuman (actually transhuman) condition. Technoscience will open up entirely new options for self-sculpting. On the other hand, it will show dualistic and Mysterian ideas about the self to be pre-scientific and confining. New technologies will open new choices, freedoms, opportunities for self-expansion and improvement, emotional refinement, and heightened creativity. The real struggle will continue to be against rationalization, ignorance, fear, and control. Perhaps this last point can be an area of common ground for both Davis and transhumanists.

[1] Davis expanded on his contested view in Davis 1998.

[2] 2023 note: Many essays in this book further demonstrate the falsity of the assertion that transhumanists don’t consider consequences. By the way, who started the whole, large movement concerned with AI alignment? Transhumanists!

[3] See More 2008 for further critical examination of misrepresentations of transhumanism. Also More 2014b, reprinted here as the next essay.

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Transhumanists vs. Mysterians on The Posthuman Condition

Plus: Two posts on biostasis/cryonics