Nietzsche, and earlier Schopenhauer, made a point out of the interdependence between object and subject. What would the sun be without something to shine on? Who would Zarathustra be?
The "bad" transhumanist project is a project to make the subject into object, " independent" as you say.
But who would we be? Independent?
No we would just be another mirror, and the mirror of the world would reflect us, wholly reflective in an infinite race towards souls without substance. Thinking we would be independent, with worthless light captured between those mirrors, is laughable.
Making the world a mirror in itself, increasing our powers of reflecting our will in it, is nothing bad in itself, it depends on what human will is. And if the human will is good, the transhumanist project could be good. So i find myself agreeing.
Although I have already written about it at length in some sense, I did not truly understand transhumanism in the way that you have explained it here; to that end, I would like to thank you for this brilliant essay. It will help me work through some of my own ideas and anxieties. Indeed, as you point out, the enemy here is cyborgism, the beginnings of which our technocratic masters are using to demoralize us into an anti-human future.
Very interesting article! I agree with the need to separate positive and negative technological extensions of the self, and that this distinction needs to be made cautiously and conservatively in order to prevent taking a “forwards step” that might be difficult to retract, in our quest for evolving and increasingly complex technological “advancements”.
However, I feel that the second sense of transhumanism you describe is a bit too limited in its scope. Cyborgism is definitely a species within the genre of negative or pessimistic transhumanism, but I don’t think it’s the only type.
A more complete definition might be something like “an ideology that seeks to materially improve humanity to a point past what it currently means to be human, seeking to transcend (in a purely material sense) humanity”. This would include not only cyborgism, but also other types of transhumanism, like transgenderism, body modification, forced evolution, and also more “mystical” transhumanist projects, like Chinese alchemical cultivation, which are all, in the end, people trying to make the human body something that it is not through material/“scientific” means.
Nietzsche, and earlier Schopenhauer, made a point out of the interdependence between object and subject. What would the sun be without something to shine on? Who would Zarathustra be?
The "bad" transhumanist project is a project to make the subject into object, " independent" as you say.
But who would we be? Independent?
No we would just be another mirror, and the mirror of the world would reflect us, wholly reflective in an infinite race towards souls without substance. Thinking we would be independent, with worthless light captured between those mirrors, is laughable.
Making the world a mirror in itself, increasing our powers of reflecting our will in it, is nothing bad in itself, it depends on what human will is. And if the human will is good, the transhumanist project could be good. So i find myself agreeing.
Although I have already written about it at length in some sense, I did not truly understand transhumanism in the way that you have explained it here; to that end, I would like to thank you for this brilliant essay. It will help me work through some of my own ideas and anxieties. Indeed, as you point out, the enemy here is cyborgism, the beginnings of which our technocratic masters are using to demoralize us into an anti-human future.
Thank you James! I’m glad my essay was helpful for clarifying your thoughts. It is wonderful to hear
Ha. That is at least some part of why we write, is it not? Cheers!
Very interesting article! I agree with the need to separate positive and negative technological extensions of the self, and that this distinction needs to be made cautiously and conservatively in order to prevent taking a “forwards step” that might be difficult to retract, in our quest for evolving and increasingly complex technological “advancements”.
However, I feel that the second sense of transhumanism you describe is a bit too limited in its scope. Cyborgism is definitely a species within the genre of negative or pessimistic transhumanism, but I don’t think it’s the only type.
A more complete definition might be something like “an ideology that seeks to materially improve humanity to a point past what it currently means to be human, seeking to transcend (in a purely material sense) humanity”. This would include not only cyborgism, but also other types of transhumanism, like transgenderism, body modification, forced evolution, and also more “mystical” transhumanist projects, like Chinese alchemical cultivation, which are all, in the end, people trying to make the human body something that it is not through material/“scientific” means.