Extropianism

[Eric the Green]

(01-17-2020, 01:13 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(01-16-2020, 02:31 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But how can biotech make us better human beings? I suspect it still requires cultivation of virtue. Can you technologically instill good character, and bring out our spontaneous and genuine love? No, it takes spiritual practice, of which meditation is primary.

What about eliminating Dark Triad traits (psychopathy, narcissism and sadism) from the human genetic makeup? The love we feel now is also a result of our brain structure and neurotransmitter production, so future humans with better brain structure and more balanced neurotransmitters will certainly be better at loving their fellows. To the extent meditation works, it does because it affects the brain.

I agree that transhumanism must be based on cultivation of virtue, and a correct moral philosophy. 60s Leftism that glorified "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll" won't do

I don't see how genetics determines dark or virtuous traits. Lots of children inherit good genes who don't live up to them. Physicalism that posits that objectively-handled and observed phenomena such as brains determines events and behavior by cause and effect, cannot as I see it explain human behavior, which has a large element of spontaneity. As we all observe this, within ourselves as well as in other life, it is beyond obvious and clear that spontaneity and creativity cannot be determined as objects caused by other objects. Cause and effect is only useful within a certain limit. As an explanation, it is infinite regress. As such, it declares and proclaims to us the obvious fact that all action originates now. The big bang is now; we are never in any other time. The infinite and eternal now is the bedrock of reality. What scientific studies of meditation prove beyond any doubt is that we as whole beings and spirit have the ability to change our brains through our spontaneous, self-caused and unexplanable activity of meditating. Reverse your statement. Our brains can be affected because meditation works. Science provides evidence that meditation works because it affects the brain.

Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll have their valuable place, as well as their drawbacks. But insofar as sixties culture (and I don't know that it was always inherently political) opened us up to the spiritual, it opened us up to spiritual traditions from which all philosophy and moral virtue is derived. The occult study of such subjects as chakras and astrology comes directly from Greek philosophy as well as other ancient sources of wisdom. Those fields were opened up to us in the 60s/70s Awakening, and are a great treasure recovered and built upon since then. The virtues are embedded, described and made accessible through these esoteric subjects. The 4 virtue tarot cards, for example, come directly from Plato's Republic, which was a dialogue inquiring into the nature of Justice. I pointed that out in my Bach Toccata essay.

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Quote:I don't think extropianism values mind over matter if it holds that the mind needs a material substrate.

Think how the amount of limitations we experience because of our material substrate is decreasing because of technology. We can talk in real time to people from another continent. We can access all mankind's knowledge online. We can also slow down ageing, at least superficially, so that thirtyish women already can run in beauty pageants and compete with 20-somethings. All of that would seem magical or otherworldly to a person from the Victorian age, let alone Ancient Greece. This development has to continue using a similar methodology, based on rationality rather than magic or faith. In the future, full immersion virtual reality will enable people to experience being their favourite fictional characters or play out their sexual fantasies. We will also be able to clone a new body and transplant our brains into it, gaining a completely different appearance. Remotely controlling the cloned body would probably be more handy, and allow one's brain to remain absolutely safe. In fact we will gain many abilities Greek Gods used to have. Furthermore, automation will free us of the necessity of wage labour and capitalism will become obsolete or at least marginalised.

Yes, I know millennials and many late cohort Xers are enamoured with technology. We have been bombarded with it for decades. Progress is our most important product, said Reagan's company GE. It's all fine, but there are other interests and pursuits of far greater value and importance to our future evolution, including in the realm of the arts and spirituality and our veneration of the Earth and the environment that sustains and models real life for us. The value of technology does not at all prove that spirit needs a material substrate; that does not follow at all. Technology was created by brilliant minds who were born from the womb and nourished by culture.

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Quote:Those who wanted to preserve the power of corporations and the wealthy as well as the racists and religious traditionalists fought back against these reforms, and they put their man Reagan into office. His efforts and those of his cohorts created the 3T, in which reaction held sway against government as "the problem" with trickle-down economics as the false cure.

Wait... Didn't America already have a Keynesian economics and strong welfare sector (aka compassionate conservatism) under the New Deal? European nations also chose a similar system during the previous cycle.

That was not during the recent 3T; that was in the 4T that followed the previous 3T. It was compassionate liberalism, as opposed to current 3T neo-liberalism.

In our current 4T, we need to revive some of those New Deal traditions and make them Green, if we are to persist as a prosperous and just American nation and world, rather than continue our slides into banana republic status and tyranny. Civic millennials will be doing their best role if they can help make this turn back into civic sanity.

Say, do you have a biotech remedy for me to make me less lazy and get out from behind this computer and indulging in this forum?