Transhumanism

[Rubystars]

I was talking about this topic earlier today and someone suggested that I start another thread on it.

In the past when I've brought this up it's gotten mixed responses. I feel that it's an important topic to bring up again though because there hasn't been a lot of mainstream coverage of it, and it is a threat to the survival of the human species.

There's a movement called transhumanism. It's followers are a mix of scientists, new agers, occultists, philosphers, etc. Basically the idea is that through technology the identity and future of the human race can be changed so that we become something other than human, something better.

Beings who are vastly intelligent, feel no unecessary pain, either physically or emotionally, and live extremely extended lifespans.

One transhumanist I saw in a documentary said that the forms our bodies take in the future will become a matter of choice such that a fashion designer could be designing bodies for people, and your body could become the ultimate expression of fashion.

When we think of body modification as it stands today, we think of things like tattoos, eye tattoos, brandings, implants for breast augmentation or to create the appearance of bumps under the skin, piercings, a pace maker, etc. but none of these fundamentally change the person's human identity. They are just as human as those who are un-modified. They live human lives and think human thoughts.

Transhumanism involves much more than that. The changes are much more fundamental. It involves genetically changing people, and not just with human genes either. Just like there is corn growing that has genes from a fish in it, and cell lines called "humster" (human/hamster), there are scientists who wish to take traits from the animal, plant, fungi, etc. kingdom and use those genetics to upgrade humanity.

Some transhumanists imagine people becoming like gods, some imagine people each having multiple sex organs shaped in a carefully designed way for nerve bundles, friction, etc. for the ultimate sexual experience. Some imagine that there will be so many diferent types of bodies that it will be more variation than the Cambrian explosion and that humans will diverge into thousands of different species.

I think that, if you are a Bible believer, and believe that God has created human beings in his own image, that you should stand against this. Whatever these people have planned will pale in comparison to what God's plan is for us. I just want you all to be aware that this movement is out there and the idea is growing in popularity. It will become a threat to humanity in the future and its beginnings may be closer than we imagine.

[Zelhar]

All this talk still belong deep into the realm of science fiction and the real science is nowhere near that point. There are urgent medical problems still waiting to be solved and tissue engineering, and bionics could provide cures for many.

I don't think there is any serious research being done about how to "transform" a human into a creature with multiple sex organs that can breath under water. If such thing is ever going to happen we are going to see beforehand some huge advancement in life science with blessed applications for people who actually need it.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

All this talk still belong deep into the realm of science fiction and the real science is nowhere near that point. There are urgent medical problems still waiting to be solved and tissue engineering, and bionics could provide cures for many.

I don't think there is any serious research being done about how to "transform" a human into a creature with multiple sex organs that can breath under water. If such thing is ever going to happen we are going to see beforehand some huge advancement in life science with blessed applications for people who actually need it.

You'd be surprised at what gene splicing can do these days...

[Rubystars]

All this talk still belong deep into the realm of science fiction and the real science is nowhere near that point. There are urgent medical problems still waiting to be solved and tissue engineering, and bionics could provide cures for many.

I don't think there is any serious research being done about how to "transform" a human into a creature with multiple sex organs that can breath under water. If such thing is ever going to happen we are going to see beforehand some huge advancement in life science with blessed applications for people who actually need it.

It's not just science fiction. Science is getting close to that point, specifically with regards to upgrading the human body with robotics. There's something called "mind uploading" that they are working on right now. The information in the human brain can be digitized, allowing people to eventually be able to make a copy of the information in that brain and transfer it to an artificial brain or to a cloud. This would allow a dead scientist's mind to continue contributing to a project after his death, or to teach a college course, etc.

Gene therapies are also being developed for life extension and other things. While I'm not against all gene therapy, it's something we need to be really watchful about. Let's say that you were offered a transplant of a humanized heart from a pig with human genetics (these things are being developed right now, and there are sheep that can make human insulin in their milk). How would you feel about that? Or what if... rather than humanizing a pig or sheep with human genetics (this has been done already, this is not science fiction) that you were offered a gene therapy which would help you to live longer but in order to do so, you would have to have genes from a pig or a dog?

The thing is, before this becomes mainstream and everyone knows about it, we need to decide where we stand as individuals on this issue. We need to decide how far is too far. How much modification from the natural human form is too much. At what point do we stop being human? These are questions that need to be answered now because the other side isn't slacking.

[Rubystars]

Here are some links:

Life in the 2050s: Consciousness unraveled, non-bio brains improve life, Next-Gen human evolves
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/pelletier20140120

Humanized pig organs to revolutionize transplantation
http://www.kurzweilai.net/humanized-pig-organs-to-revolutionize-transplantation

Now scientists can create a sheep that's 15% human
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-444436/Now-scientists-create-sheep-thats-15-human.html

Human/hamster chimera:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8409433

this is a great documentary explaining it and unfortuntaely it gives a positive spin on it... if it won't affect you in your lifetime, this is something your children or grandchildren will have to face. It's that close to becoming reality... This video should show you that there are actually things being worked on by scientists right now.

[Zelhar]

Do you mean the the technology that is used to create genetically modified crops? It technology can theoretically be used to create human with hybrid DNA but as far as I know it is still very crude and dependent on allot of randomness with many more failures then successful application. Moreover so far it seems only possible to apply very few modification but this is far from engineering a new specie. Even if you manage to insert a gene from a rat into a banana you don't (if anything) basically a banana with the new gene either not doing anything or just a a tiny modification (i.e. the new banana won't have legs and tail or central nervous system or any functional nerve system at all). It is still very much impossible to engineer big changes that dramatically transform the organism.

You'd be surprised at what gene splicing can do these days...

[Zelhar]

Mind uploading is very much science fiction, there is no hard science to back it up at all it's only talk (for now at least). It is not even remotely possible to "record" memories in the way they are recorded in the brain. Yes we can write them down and reconstruct them the way we have been doing for thousands of years but we have no way (yet) to interface directly with the brain and up/download thoughts and memories, so to speak about a whole brainload of consciousness being digitized as a scientific reality is premature.

It is possible to stimulate the nervous system to induce motion or sensual stimulation and in the not too far away future it will be possible to repair a damaged spinal cord for example. Even today (and in fact for something like 30 years already) it is possible to implant an artificial organ (cochlear implant) that enables deaf people to hear.

It's not just science fiction. Science is getting close to that point, specifically with regards to upgrading the human body with robotics. There's something called "mind uploading" that they are working on right now. The information in the human brain can be digitized, allowing people to eventually be able to make a copy of the information in that brain and transfer it to an artificial brain or to a cloud. This would allow a dead scientist's mind to continue contributing to a project after his death, or to teach a college course, etc.

I think any rational person who wants to live would chose the pig's heart over death. Using sheep for insulin (or any other) synthesis- I see no real dilemma here either. The modified sheep and pigs are not more human then the non modified breeds. They have the same mental capacity and they are at the same "level" of animal existence.

Gene therapy- as a therapy when it can be used as effective treatment it is a very good thing. As far as I know it carries also a significant risk so it is only useful in cases where the risk is worth then the certain alternative. Anyways it's not like a person gets a genetically modified viral load and turns into spider man. So here too, I think this is another technology that can be used effectively in medicine but it is very far away from enabling the creation of "transhumans".

Gene therapies are also being developed for life extension and other things. While I'm not against all gene therapy, it's something we need to be really watchful about. Let's say that you were offered a transplant of a humanized heart from a pig with human genetics (these things are being developed right now, and there are sheep that can make human insulin in their milk). How would you feel about that? Or what if... rather than humanizing a pig or sheep with human genetics (this has been done already, this is not science fiction) that you were offered a gene therapy which would help you to live longer but in order to do so, you would have to have genes from a pig or a dog?

The thing is, before this becomes mainstream and everyone knows about it, we need to decide where we stand as individuals on this issue. We need to decide how far is too far. How much modification from the natural human form is too much. At what point do we stop being human? These are questions that need to be answered now because the other side isn't slacking.

[angryChineseKahanist]

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

All this talk still belong deep into the realm of science fiction and the real science is nowhere near that point. There are urgent medical problems still waiting to be solved and tissue engineering, and bionics could provide cures for many.

I don't think there is any serious research being done about how to "transform" a human into a creature with multiple sex organs that can breath under water. If such thing is ever going to happen we are going to see beforehand some huge advancement in life science with blessed applications for people who actually need it.

Zelhar is right on, as usual.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

Here are some links:

Life in the 2050s: Consciousness unraveled, non-bio brains improve life, Next-Gen human evolves
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/pelletier20140120

Humanized pig organs to revolutionize transplantation
http://www.kurzweilai.net/humanized-pig-organs-to-revolutionize-transplantation

Now scientists can create a sheep that's 15% human
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-444436/Now-scientists-create-sheep-thats-15-human.html

Human/hamster chimera:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8409433

this is a great documentary explaining it and unfortuntaely it gives a positive spin on it... if it won't affect you in your lifetime, this is something your children or grandchildren will have to face. It's that close to becoming reality... This video should show you that there are actually things being worked on by scientists right now.

Hype hype hype and more hype. 
The transplantation technology is really promising and really important though.
The big failure of organ transplants from animal sources (traditionally they tried using pig organs) has been that the human immune system recognizes the foreign organ as foreign and therefore attacks it.  This leads to "rejection" of the transplant, and the person dies because the organ they got stops working once the immune system attacks it.   If you can mask the "foreignness" of the organ and trick the immune system into recognizing it as a human organ rather than a pig's, you can save a lot of lives with viable transplants which people need and which we could not get to them all these years.     That has nothing to do with fantastical claims about pig-humans or other science fiction.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

Anyways it's not like a person gets a genetically modified viral load and turns into spider man. So here too, I think this is another technology that can be used effectively in medicine but it is very far away from enabling the creation of "transhumans".

I think this is the key point that people outside the field of research just don't understand and the media journalists (who are equally outsiders even though it's their job to know better and they should be more responsible) report on these developments with simplistic and fantastical language which make people confused about what it really is.

[Zelhar]

I think that in that particular issue there are also people with serious credentials who partake in this fantasy- Ray Kurzweil comes to mind. There is that "singularity" movement of people (I think Kurzweil is associated with it), allot of them are serious and highly educated, who believe physical immortality is just around the corner. It reminds me of people who predict the coming of the messiah at a specific and imminent date.

I think this is the key point that people outside the field of research just don't understand and the media journalists (who are equally outsiders even though it's their job to know better and they should be more responsible) report on these developments with simplistic and fantastical language which make people confused about what it really is.

[Zelhar]

Regarding downloading/uploading the mind- I think there is a a strong indication that it is theoretically impossible with current computer technology:
Every computer since the first vacuum tube ones till today's supercomputers (as is the theoretical quantum computer) is what we call a Turing machine. Essentially they work the same way and the set of calculations and programs they can run is exactly the same. What's important here is that a computer is a deterministic machine. We don't know that a human mind is a deterministic machine, certainly anyone who believes in the concept of free will doesn't think that.

With powerful computing and advanced programming it should be possible to create computers that mimic allot of what we think is unique to us humans but isn't. There there are already examples of computers that can have a conversation with a person, "write" poems, compose music. They are still not self-aware, and they don't "think" originally they follow a programmed pattern, they mimic processes that occur in our mind in some superficial way.

[Rubystars]

I can't help you if you're going to choose to stick your heads in the ground. I am very disappointed again that nobody will even take the time to research these topics... what is being done now, what is being planned for the near (not far) future. Many transhumanists are talking about things revving up in just a few decades on these issues, not something like hundreds of years from now. Many of us will still be alive when this begins to start happening, and certainly if you have kids, they will be. Do you even care about them? Do you care if they or your grandkids are "upgraded?"

I told my friend that you guys weren't ready to receive this information, that you would rather ignore it. If this begins to happen then identities like "Jewish" will become a matter of choice as people will be able to custom-design their bodies or have their heads grafted onto other bodies.

Is this hype? Someone's about to have a head transplanted (which may or may not be successful, but it is being done now, not in the far future)

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/neurosurgeon-sergio-canavero-insists-time-now-frontier-breaking-head-transplant-1497034

[Rubystars]

All this might seem irrelevant right now with the elections approaching, with all the problems we have to deal with right here and right now, but all I'm asking for... is that you think about these issues, think about where you stand on them, where you draw the line on how much modification is too much, what it means to be human and what it means to cross the line into something other... That way if this becomes a more imminent issue within our lifetimes, you won't have to process it all at once.

Does that make sense to people? Can you do that much?

[Zelhar]

I don't think You, I or anyone else should have the authority to tell other people what type of modifications they want to undergo on themselves. One thing of concern is that crazies are going to start trying to engineer babies and since most of these attempts are going to fail it's the poor human babies that will suffer the consequences. So here I must put the red line and forbid people from playing Frankenstein on innocent and unwilling subjects.

But Rubystars at least philosophically I am not worried from humans engineering themselves into a better specie, I wish it on myself in fact. But I just don't think that sort of things are coming anytime soon if ever.

[muman613]

Let me start by saying I am against any attempt to modify humanity. Second it should be clear from a Jewish perspective that this is highly 'un-kosher'. My understanding is that humanity is the highest level of creation and we should be grateful for this existence. Humanity has not mastered the human condition even to this day, so much of our potential has gone un-utilized.

Humanity is not perfect and it is not intended to be. The Torah explains that originally life was perfect in the garden of Eden but because of human arrogance (which is being demonstrated by these so-called trans-humanists) we have been challenged to live a life of struggle in our physical existence. I have no desire to be anything but a good and righteous human being. That is all that G-d wants from us. We are not supposed to be birds, lizards, or even angels or g-ds. We have a purpose and a need to act in this world, not some virtual reality, not some dream wold, and not some artificially created genetic world.

I doubt anyone will escape being human. The only escape is through fantasy which is unproductive.

[Rubystars]

I don't think You, I or anyone else should have the authority to tell other people what type of modifications they want to undergo on themselves. One thing of concern is that crazies are going to start trying to engineer babies and since most of these attempts are going to fail it's the poor human babies that will suffer the consequences. So here I must put the red line and forbid people from playing Frankenstein on innocent and unwilling subjects.

But Rubystars at least philosophically I am not worried from humans engineering themselves into a better specie, I wish it on myself in fact. But I just don't think that sort of things are coming anytime soon if ever.

The transhumanists are really pushing for this primarily because it's the logical extension of atheism. After all if there is no afterlife then the logical thing to do would be to extend this life for as long as possible. The natural human body though no matter how well taken care of or how healthy someone's lifestyle is can only live so long without modification... I think some of them are willing to do anything and everything to achieve their goal of creating lifespans hundreds of years long. That includes altering people on a genetic level, etc.

I wouldn't be talking about this though if it was something I really believed was some far future fantasy. I think it may be something that becomes technologically possible in 50 years or so.

This one guy is about to have his head transplanted onto a new body as the first of potentially many such operations. It could go wrong... but it has been done with animals before.

Any philosophy which views human beings as "inferior" is a very slippery slope. Imagine you have groups of people who have been upgraded and people who have not, and the upgraded people see those natural humans as "inferior". What if the upgraded versions are faster, more intelligent, stronger, etc. What chance would humanity stand?

[Rubystars]

Let me start by saying I am against any attempt to modify humanity. Second it should be clear from a Jewish perspective that this is highly 'un-kosher'. My understanding is that humanity is the highest level of creation and we should be grateful for this existence. Humanity has not mastered the human condition even to this day, so much of our potential has gone un-utilized.

Humanity is not perfect and it is not intended to be. The Torah explains that originally life was perfect in the garden of Eden but because of human arrogance (which is being demonstrated by these so-called trans-humanists) we have been challenged to live a life of struggle in our physical existence. I have no desire to be anything but a good and righteous human being. That is all that G-d wants from us. We are not supposed to be birds, lizards, or even angels or g-ds. We have a purpose and a need to act in this world, not some virtual reality, not some dream wold, and not some artificially created genetic world.

I doubt anyone will escape being human. The only escape is through fantasy which is unproductive.

I think that if enough modification is done then there may be a point where you can no longer call someone human. It's unclear theologically where that line would be crossed. Would someone genetically modified to have a tapetum lucidum still be human if they were human in all other respects? Probably... but at some point there's a line that will be crossed where you can't really call them human anymore. If humanity splits into two or more species then conflict is inevitable.

[muman613]

Indeed RS... I just watched the 1st X-Men movie and this is one of the main themes.... The mutants pose a threat to humanity (although in the movie there are good mutants who are fighting to save humanity)...

[angryChineseKahanist]

I also do not trust being modified. especially under obongo care.

[Zelhar]

I also do not trust being modified. especially under obongo care.

With Obongo, youe limbs are safe!

[Yehudayaakov]

There's nothing new here it was done before...you'r talking about naziiism they just changed the name!

[angryChineseKahanist]

a body transplant?
that's possible.

uploading someone's brain. yes.
what about someone's soul? not possible with what we know.

[Rubystars]

So anyway... to avoid accusations that this is all just science fiction I will try to be posting stories that are happening right now (in current time) so people can get an idea of how fast this technology will be progressing.

http://www.nature.com/news/chinese-scientists-genetically-modify-human-embryos-1.17378