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Version 2.0 - Nano/Biogenetically Engineered Body

Last post 12-29-2006, 11:22 AM by Veritas. 24 replies.
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    CemiessCemiess is not online. Last active: 04-22-2009, 11:32 PM wrote 07-16-2006, 7:33 PM

    lol @ stardrive

    Well that's a pretty odd thought, but damn radical. Getting me thinking....

    Do we really want to be something other than human? A ball of energy? A spaceship? Have you not heard of sex?

    I'm all for upgrades (just watched Superman Returns tonight - the flying and invincibility - that's the way to go) but we are humans and we have something called love. No matter what plane of existence we are on, I don't want to be a ghost with my soulmate (who I haven't met yet, btw....I don't think...) I want to feel their soft lips near mine, their bodies (which are a reflection of how they care for themselves) pressed against mine, I want to look into their eyes and melt....if we go outside the paradigm of being human this will be lost.

    I realise that some people would want to go this way, and I'm not against them doing this. I just don't think it will be for everyone. I want an awesome body as much as the next man (my body wishlist is posted on here somewhere) but it still needs to be human when it comes down to it. I'm attracted to beautiful women, not balls of energy.

    Just something to note.

    EschewObfuscationEschewObfuscation is not online. Last active: 03-21-2007, 9:58 AM wrote 07-16-2006, 9:16 PM

    Cemiess:
    lol @ stardrive

    Well that's a pretty odd thought, but damn radical. Getting me thinking....

    Do we really want to be something other than human? A ball of energy? A spaceship? Have you not heard of sex?

    I'm all for upgrades (just watched Superman Returns tonight - the flying and invincibility - that's the way to go) but we are humans and we have something called love. No matter what plane of existence we are on, I don't want to be a ghost with my soulmate (who I haven't met yet, btw....I don't think...) I want to feel their soft lips near mine, their bodies (which are a reflection of how they care for themselves) pressed against mine, I want to look into their eyes and melt....if we go outside the paradigm of being human this will be lost.

    I realise that some people would want to go this way, and I'm not against them doing this. I just don't think it will be for everyone. I want an awesome body as much as the next man (my body wishlist is posted on here somewhere) but it still needs to be human when it comes down to it. I'm attracted to beautiful women, not balls of energy.

    Just something to note.


    I agree, but surely any body form can be made capable of such experiences (and much more intense, of course).

    Mr. FarlopsMr. Farlops is not online. Last active: Sat, Jul 28 2007, 5:23 AM wrote 07-18-2006, 6:28 PM

    Cemiess wrote, "Do we really want to be something other than human? A ball of energy? A spaceship? Have you not heard of sex? ...if we go outside the paradigm of being human this will be lost."

    Well, not everyone wants the same thing.

    I'm guessing that, among your many goals, you'd use your extreme longevity and new abilities to begin a lifelong search for true love. And that's perfectly fine, if that's what you want.

    But your motivations are different from mine. I think the concept of soulmates is illusory and leads to pointless misery. I think it's much happier to believe that close enough is good enough and that there is always more fish in the sea. The two kinds of love that matter most to me, the ones were I get most teary-eyed, are friendship and love of the world. Perhaps my two deeply personal questions I want to answer are: How long can a friendship last in the face of eons of change and will boredom ever creep up on me?

    It's true that my emotional outlook shapes my decisions as to what kind of body I'd ultimately choose. For me, a homo sap body, even an mildly enhanced one, is just not enough for me to face an eternity of change and experience with.

    Perhaps we can engage in a little pigeonholing here and classify all transhumanists into two big camps: The revelers and the discarders.

    The revelers, in broad strokes, want to use these technologies to really mine out the experience of being human. They want to explore the entire perfomance envelope of the homo sap body and brain. Youth, durability and memory-swapping will let them do this, no matter how hard they party.

    The discarders, in broad strokes, are more monkish or nunnish. They realize, correctly or incorrectly, that the homo sap body provides a tiny portion of all the kinds of experiences that might be possible. The lure of bigger fields to play in draws them more strongly than the slightly enlarged field offered by the transhuman body. They want to leap straight into be being post-human, to experience emotions and thoughts that are simply impossible for mildly enhanced homo sap hardware to process.

    Perhaps there'll be crossover between the two camps as the eons pass. Discards might forget what it feels like to be human and return for a time to the world of revelers. Revelers might grow bored with human experience space and migrate into radically different forms with the other discarders.

    Anyway, my initial impulse is to jump into the discarder camp as soon as technology will allow for it. I guessing that Cemiess and like minded people will want to linger for a few centuries.

    AcrinoeAcrinoe is not online. Last active: 04-08-2008, 1:09 PM wrote 07-21-2006, 7:28 AM

    Labels are so .......human.  Trying to segment future humanity into two broad camps, in an age where individualism is already more important than commonality, is most likely to result in more exceptions to the rule than anything else.

    I hope that if our trendline for attaining mastery over our enviromnent continues, we will be able to change our forms as quickly as we can change our minds.  I see no discontinuity in being able to both explore the depths and boundaries of the human condition in one breath and leap into completely alien modes and forms in the next. 

    Perhaps this may be difficult for humans to encompass, but perhaps for posthumans it will be second nature. 

     

    beinglikewaterbeinglikewater is not online. Last active: 08-28-2006, 6:42 PM wrote 08-28-2006, 6:10 PM

    As far as my redesigned body goes, I would have to choose the ability to have my 'core' kept far away from my actual body. This would allow the usage of temporary host bodies and possibly the ability to 'partition myself' to allow for multiple instances of my conciousness to be active simultaneously.

     Also I would certainly like to see the emergence of a technology that would allow me to percieve vision in 360 degrees.

    Another point- If our race is eventually to become immortal, I think it would be helpful to manipulate our perception of the passing of time.

    All of the prior mentioned ideas have been great.. I hope to see more..

     

    i think that alot of people will have a hard time coping with the many changes ahead of us, not everyone would wish to give up their natural bodies for something manufactured- as we approach the singularity i forsee a further stratification of groups/societies; where on one side is science, and the other religion... i can only hope that the two will finally come together and make sense.

    VondracosVondracos is not online. Last active: 08-28-2009, 9:08 AM wrote 12-14-2006, 9:04 AM

    beinglikewater:

    As far as my redesigned body goes, I would have to choose the ability to have my 'core' kept far away from my actual body. This would allow the usage of temporary host bodies and possibly the ability to 'partition myself' to allow for multiple instances of my conciousness to be active simultaneously.

     Also I would certainly like to see the emergence of a technology that would allow me to percieve vision in 360 degrees.

    Another point- If our race is eventually to become immortal, I think it would be helpful to manipulate our perception of the passing of time.

    All of the prior mentioned ideas have been great.. I hope to see more..

     

    i think that alot of people will have a hard time coping with the many changes ahead of us, not everyone would wish to give up their natural bodies for something manufactured- as we approach the singularity i forsee a further stratification of groups/societies; where on one side is science, and the other religion... i can only hope that the two will finally come together and make sense.

     

    Wow I like the idea of the partitioning and core being seperate, I think that is way cool. Would be awesome to have your core in a secure location and then your mind is partitioned in a few seperate physical bodies in various locations and that when they are not needed there anymore they're consciousness can return to the core leaving the physical body to biodegrade. The partioned mind would rejoin the main core and bring all the experiences that it had while away so your main consciousness would remain updated. I think that would be interesting none the least albiet maybe a little confusing at first until psychologically we adapted to that multiplicity.

    The Mentalis

    TrenialTrenial is not online. Last active: 12-28-2006, 6:28 PM wrote 12-28-2006, 3:38 PM

    Excuse me for sounding like a total newbie,

    but is this all just hypothetical theory of some sort,

    Or could someone actually go about doing this to their(sp?) body? 

    • Moderator

    VeritasVeritas is not online. Last active: 11-25-2008, 8:17 PM wrote 12-28-2006, 5:10 PM

    hypothetical. Hopefully, they are mostly reasonable extrapolations of potential benefits of future technology (including nanotechnology, advanced AI, bio/genetic engineering), given our current knowledge of the utmost limits of said technologies (what will be possible vs. what may be possible vs. what is most likely not possible = can be a gray area, since most of these techs. are relatively 'young').

    The extent of the future of bodily modifications is definitely debatable. The possiblity of uploading your consciousness into an advanced form of computer is probably the biggest area of contention.

    One less debated here is healthy life extension (longer, healthier lives). It's pretty much taken as a given in these circles (including by myself). It's hoped that with any improvements in longer/healthier lives now will provide more time for scientists and researchers to devise more cures/treatments to prolong life even further.

    Most of the stuff mentioned above is 25, 50, 100+ years away, depending on technological progress, social impediments, wars, etc. What is available nowadays is decidely low-tech in comparison. But it's looking better every year...

    TrenialTrenial is not online. Last active: 12-28-2006, 6:28 PM wrote 12-28-2006, 6:28 PM

    Veritas:

    hypothetical. Hopefully, they are mostly reasonable extrapolations of potential benefits of future technology (including nanotechnology, advanced AI, bio/genetic engineering), given our current knowledge of the utmost limits of said technologies (what will be possible vs. what may be possible vs. what is most likely not possible = can be a gray area, since most of these techs. are relatively 'young').

    The extent of the future of bodily modifications is definitely debatable. The possiblity of uploading your consciousness into an advanced form of computer is probably the biggest area of contention.

    One less debated here is healthy life extension (longer, healthier lives). It's pretty much taken as a given in these circles (including by myself). It's hoped that with any improvements in longer/healthier lives now will provide more time for scientists and researchers to devise more cures/treatments to prolong life even further.

    Most of the stuff mentioned above is 25, 50, 100+ years away, depending on technological progress, social impediments, wars, etc. What is available nowadays is decidely low-tech in comparison. But it's looking better every year...

     Ah..

    Well all I can say is that I've heard some rumors about scientist's working on something that could increase human lifespans by 60 years or so.
     

    • Moderator

    VeritasVeritas is not online. Last active: 11-25-2008, 8:17 PM wrote 12-29-2006, 11:22 AM

    If you're interested in exploring these ideas a little further, check out this link to a recent article articulating some of these thoughts very, very well...

     http://lifeboat.com/ex/singularities.and.nightmares

     cheers,

     V

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