Transhumanism, From a Strictly Extra-Terrestrial Point of View

in life •  7 years ago 

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Suppose you’re an alien, from outer space. You arrive to planet earth and start to wonder: “How come every time I come around here things keep getting crazier and crazier?”

First it was scarifying your first born to the sun to seek eternal life. Then it was throwing virgins to the volcano to seek eternal life. Then it was chowing down on human hearts to seek eternal life.

And even in the recent years, people were popping up cyanide pills in Jonestown to seek eternal life.

But even after seeing all of that, nothing leaves you more perplexed than the newest hype of all, Transhumanism.

Remixing the Same Old Song

You go visit some old friends and take you along as they go singing up for this new Eugenics trend that now has re-emerged with a brand new name.

The story goes like this: You freeze yourself up in a cryogenic chamber and wait for an unknown time in the future, to be defrosted like a chicken breast and then wait for them to upload your consciousness back into your body.

Now that sounds like a totally believable story. I bet the virgin from the volcano would totally buy into that.

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So how does this work exactly?

You say that in a few years, you’ll un-freeze me and upload my consciousness back to my body.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

Then where you keep that consciousness until the upload process begins?

She’s in shock, she never expected that type of question before. But you throw in a joke to break the silence:

Is there some a big freezer in the basement where you find all those souls stacked in plastic bags?

I just hope they don’t keep it stored next to the Siracha sauce.

She releases a nervous laugh and continues to show you around, meanwhile she strengthens her sales pitch trying to appeal to your emotional senses so you can stop questioning and start believing.

But the thing is, curiosity is a lot more fun.

How do you extract the consciousness anyways? Do they stab you with a syringe in the head and extract it? Do you have to pee in a cup and they filter it out of your bodily fluids?

Or maybe they pump it out your crown Chakra?

Everyone laughs, but it only last at second. It is as if everyone just realized that they never stopped to question these things before.

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“No silly, we still don’t know how to extract consciousness yet. But in the future, science will provide all the answers.”

So just how far away are we from that point in time? Your friend asks. Five years? Ten Years?

“Well… It’s like this. What is known as the consciousness-consciousness, no one know what it is yet, let alone where it resides.”

She continues:

“That look into the person’s eye, that moment when you touch someone and feel something unique. That love at first sight... The intuition, that moment when a woman knows her son is not coming back or the her husband shouldn’t go to work that day… The human soul so to speak, we still haven’t figured out where that resides.”

One of your friends gets curious and asks:

So basically, you don’t know whether the consciousness lies in the heart, in the gut, in brain… Nor on the bloodstream for that matter?

“That we don’t know yet. Buuuttt… You have to have faith that science will one day provide all the answers that we seek”.

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So basically, I go freeze myself now with the hope that someday, someone would be able to find my consciousness and upload it back into my body?

“You have to have faith, yes.”

In the absence of any scientific proof that they find a human soul let alone download and upload it at will. Doesn’t that almost like some type of religious cult?

“Well... It’s like this, we charge a standard fee of $80.000 per year, but you are free to choose the number of years you want to remain in the freezer… If you have faith that science will find an answer in 10 years then we book you for ten. If you think in twenty years, then pay for twenty.

It depends on how much faith you have”.

I stand corrected, that sounds exactly like a religious cult.

“…Any suggestion that you can come back to life is simply snake oil. Transhumanists have responses to these issues. In my experience, they consist of alternating demands that we trust our intuition about nonexistent technology but deny our intuition about consciousness.

No one who has experienced the disbelief of losing a loved one can help but sympathize with someone who pays $80,000 to freeze their brain. But reanimation or simulation is an abjectly false hope that is beyond the promise of technology and is certainly impossible with the frozen, dead tissue offered by the “cryonics” industry.
Those who profit from this hope deserve our anger and contempt.”

– MIT Technology Review ; The False Science of Cryonics.

Blind Faith, That's Not What Science is About

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Now I know, eighty grand per year is a bit steep for sleeping in a freezer. But if there’s something you don’t want to skimp on, that’s the personnel handling your consciousness transfer.

The last thing you want is that they go hiring double digit IQ staff with questionable morals and a bad attitude.

What do you mean?

You know how wherever you go to MacDonald there is this guy that always gives you the wrong order?

Now hire that guy, and you’ll know the true meaning of waking up to as a man trapped in a woman’s body.

“Damn it Bobby! You uploaded the consciousness to the wrong body again. How many times I told you to pay attention?”.

Picture that, you’re a 30 years old man and they upload your consciousness to a 90-year-old woman… Or a four-year-old kid.

And then what do you do?

Funny Questions That Ought to Be Asked

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Suppose they mistakenly upload two streams of consciousness inside one body.

Would that count as schizophrenia?

And what’s the peaceful resolution on this case? That each person gets one half of the body?

Suppose you want to have sex with and you co-host doesn’t. Suppose you want to masturbate but you got the left hand. Suppose you share a body with a bulimic who keeps going to the bathroom to throw up as soon as soon as you satisfy your hunger.

Suppose you share a body with an Instagram model who just can’t stop taking butt selfies.

Technically you still own the other butt cheek, but your life would be a nightmare nonetheless.

Suppose the guy who writes the label on each consciousness file suffers from a bit of Dyslexia.

You think you’re resuscitating Obama, but instead you’re getting Osama.

I bet they didn’t see that one coming.

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Image Sources: 123456 - 7

… To be continued.

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Uh ohhhhh :D
to be continued looks like i need to visit your blog sooner than i thought haha
interesting post bro

Thanks you! It was just too long to post in one post so I divided it in two.

I'm glad you found it entertaining :)

Now that was freaking cool post from you thanks for sharing it resteemed

Thanks a lot @wandering! I appreciate it.

different post's you write buddy that's why love to read it more and more you are extra creative ;)

Haha thanks, I try my best to entertain :)

far far away in the search of a new way hahah pretty interesting topic to write upon your really rocked it

Haha thanks @cutiepie! I was wondering how to make a complex subject funny... So I took a shot. I'm glad you liked it :)

Excellent post @the-alien you discovered something new today great to see your post

curiosity definitely hooked me into your post today .. best post

Haha thanks! I'm glad you liked it Starboye :)

Entertainer post for sure.

But if we had that technology we wouldn’t do the mistakes you are saying, and even if we did, we could just reverse them and fix them.

Do you know the series black mirror?

Haha this is just comedy of course, and yes we don't have the technology - however some are selling it already and I think it's fun to joke about it.

Why not? Life is short, and we all should be able of laugh about all subjects :)

Black Mirror is an amazing series! Have you see the latest season?

Of course! I was surprised early January when I saw it was available. Nice way of spending those days after New Years haha!

What’s your favorite episode of all the seasons? Mine is San junipero. It has some beautifully moments with a song that even to this date I still like. Do you know what I mean?

i was like boom hahah best post whenever you come you come with a bang bang i was completely in a different world reading it haha :D

Haha thanks a lot! And so nice to see you :)

I think that part 2 is much funnier btw, at least I hope so :)

I agree, interesting topic about extra terestrial point of view

I believe that your consciousness is stored in your higher self. The reason for this belief is that when you sleep, you are aware that you have been asleep, you are aware that time has passed and that you have dreamed. However, when you are put under general anaesthetic you have no such memory. It is almost as though the brain has been switched off, and then when you awaken, your last memory was feeling groggy as the anaesthetic took hold. I would imagine that if a body was frozen and then somehow reanimated, a similar experience would occur. Almost as though the higher conscious is holding your consciousness in a paused state until it can re-enter the body. During sleep however the consciousness is interacting with the higher consciousness.

"Transhumanism" is the product of secular humanism and the Enlightenment, and argues not only the possibility but also the desirability of improving the human nature in the near future as a result of applying the latest achievements of scientific-technical progress. In fact, he argues the need for conscious, scientific-controlled evolution of the human species with immediate objectives: to increase the duration of healthy life, to expand our intellectual and physical abilities and to give us ever increasing control over our own mental States. For this purpose the bioengineering of the person with use of the latest advances in biomedical technology, genetics, neuroscience, nanotechnology, computer technology and the creation of artificial human genome.

In certain combinations of the aforementioned bioengineering human transhumanists see a new age in which people are freed from the fact that Christian anthropology calls the consequences of original sin, passion, perishability and mortality of human nature, and what is the cause of physical and mental illness, aging and the transience of human life. In transhumanist perspective its adherents is seen not only able to control mentally emotional States and the duration of his life, but also randomly select their "nature" and "nature" of their children.
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First of all, thank you for the detailed analysis. This is just a comedy by the way :)

I wish they deliver what they seek, enlightenment, immortality... Etc. I wish everyone the best, but this is just a comedy just like many subjects before it. As the great Robin Williams used to say: "The World is Open for Play" :)

Have a great day and all the best!

It doesn’t matter anyways, imagine a stone age man or someone from the middle ages being defrosted in our time, nothing more than a curiosity, an outcast, or experiment. No matter how intelligent you think you are, defrozen in the future you become an animal. There is enough in one lifetime to be curious about, so why waste that voluntarily for some alien undefinable future? If you can’t satisfy your curiosity in this lifetime, you never will.

Oh that's a very interesting point. Or maybe if a solar flare hits the earth 200 years from now and they wake up in the stone age 2.0 :P

You almost got me, but even then you have no clue how to survive in stone age 2.0 😅

Thanks man!

Fantastic post and some fun i am lucky to read it you are a great man carry on always post like this

Thank you :)

No that won't count as schizophrenia but can contribute to schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves.

Thanks for the clarification.

P.S: This was just comedy, I don't think they'll actually be able to upload several souls in one body. At least not anytime soon.

Thanks again!

Some philosophers believe that the singularity will occur when we finally discover how to combine things like plastic surgery and computer technology into a Borg-like humanoid structure, while other theorists think we'll simply evolve past the need for bodies at all and be able to upload ourselves to a server. Whatever form (or forms) transhumanism takes, it's coming soon. great post @the-alien

Thanks man! Will keep an eye on it :) Have a great day!!

It seems to me that as if they were wanting to play God, everything has a limit, if a transfer is achieved as expressed in your post, that feeling of belonging to life would be lost, it would simply be a game of seeing who lives the most losing any sense to the desire to live or enjoy the small moments of it.

Haha I don't know if they are wanting to play God, or pretending to. That's the question. :P

I am very interested and excited about the possibility of the discovery of extra terrestrial life, so I am alien and I go to the other planets I would devote much of my career to explore new things...
thanks for sharing this interesting article @the-alien

Haha that's a fascinating subject :)

Thanks for the awesome comment!

Instead of being frozen I’d like a giant scale super conducting 3D model of my brain recreated, so that, although “i” may not be able to evolve anymore, I might still exist in a form that could perform any of my monologues and even conversations that my mind was already prepared to have before I died.

In reality, I’ve just recorded several 10,000 hours Of my work pre inventing and getting ready to publish the story I came up with along the way.

You seem like you could help in working on Steemit to finish assembling said story / choose y/our own adventure.

Please LMK if I am correct sir!

Alx

Oh that sounds super interesting. Looking forward to read that story.. is it gonna be published on steemit?

Initially. That’s the plan ATM. But to do so I’d need some help from the authors here with assembly work. Having 99% Of the idea and story “mining” done, unfortunately doesn’t mean I’m smart, good, or even fast enough, to produce the ultimate print case scenario necessary. I hope it lives up to your expectations at first impression. And that you end up both finding pathways through it that you love, going so far as to add some branches, leaves, and even perhaps a fruit or a few of your own. Thanks for asking!

The world is really getting more and more crazy: From sacrificing first born to the sun, throwing virgins to the volcano chowing down on human hearts, all because of the sesrch for eternity.
Its scary.

Hahaha historically :P

Good article. Transhumanism is going to be an interesting topic. That in addition to AI and advancements in neuroscience etc will really challenge the traditional paradigm of consciousness. Who knows but interesting nonetheless

Thank you

You are making a great article I wish I could become as successful as you and get a voice for me

Thank you. Best of luck and all the best!

good !!

Thanks!

That was an amazing post! I would've had the same questions in this situation. Uploading consciousness into a human's body?! That would be very dangerous and I think our society would not be ready for it for a few hundred years.
Loved it!

Haha thanks! I'm glad you liked it :)

Very good, and funny. I appreciate the reference to Westworld (image). Julian Jaynes' controversial tome, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicamerial Mind is also appreciated. Upvoting and following. Thanks!

Thank you! I love Westworld such a great series!

Congratulations @the-alien, this post is the third most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Superuser account holder (accounts that hold between 1 and 10 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Superuser account holders during this period was 1650 and the total pending payments to posts in this category was $15519.78. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.

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Great article!
I was discussing this topic with some friends last week, we all agreed that this was unethical and you should play with nature's will. Furthermore, I think that humans shouldn't play being god

Thank you Ashley. I think that luckily, they can't even play god but rather just pretend to... Until they show plausible evidence it's all philosophy so far it seems. And I think it's fun to have fun poking at it :)

a good post my friend likes your post.

I'm glad :) Thank you

This is hilarious. Does this place actually exist? I’ve heard of similar places but not transhumanism.

It’s insane that they expect people to handover what are probably their life savings for what will likely turn out to be an early death, rather than eternal life.

Haha oh yeah. There are some even that cost 100K per year.

And you're right, it's insane to expect people to do that, but they are just using concept of religion they saw working and added a "science" spin on it.

Haha crazy world :P

That was a great text to read... but of course consciousness wouldn't be uploaded, it stays there in the brain, frozen all the time.
Cheers

Thanks Spritualmax!

I've actually looked into this topic on many an occasion. I think what you refer to as "soul" would be better termed consciousness. Advances in technology particularly in 3 key areas being nanotechnology, genomics and AI/robotics will likely see old age abated potentially for centuries. The worlds leading foremost authority on ageing believes it's possible we'll have the answers we need by 2030. That which you refer to as a soul is a religious term that as you say "faith" is required to believe in.

Do you believe in god, heaven and hell? I have even written on my thoughts on the topic of god - lol. Where do you think that term originated? What do you think religion is? Religion is a system of control used to make you believe it's OK to die. Everything stated about trans-humanism is based on science, science works based on observable facts, learn't from experimentation and recording results.

Do you believe the earth is flat too?

no i don't wanna share that butt selfies lol hahah

Haha no one does :P

Superb work!! Thank you

Thanks a lot! I'm glad you liked it :)

Very interesting post I liked your posts very much .I request you plz visit my blog

Waoooo! Your post is fantastic. I sincerely commend you for this writeup. Keep it up. I upvote you.

Thank you very much! I'll do my best to keep it up :)

finally you made me an alien too hahah now i know why you choosed your username like that ;)

Haha welcome to the new world! ;)

this post gave me a path to discover more and look for new horizons to be discovered

Thanks a lot for the kind words @sadcasm.. I only am trying to entertain and add value, I'm glad you liked it :)

If I'm an alien,who just arrived to Planet Earth,I would be like "what the hell is wrong with these humanoids?Killing the planet that provides for them and ensured their survival ?"

Haha that's true.

when ever @the-alien ,,you post on this side,just I wait for your post to reading.because all of your post is excellent to me.in this post I think 2 part is very funny. In fact, he argues the need for conscious, scientific-controlled evolution of the human species with immediate objectives: to increase the duration of healthy life, to expand our intellectual and physical abilities and to give us ever increasing control over our own mental States. For this purpose the bioengineering of the person with use of the latest advances in biomedical technology, genetics, neuroscience, nanotechnology, computer technology and the creation of artificial human genome.different post's you write buddy that's why like to read it more and more you are extra creative person.finally want to say you this i one of the great post.

intersting and funny :)

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it :)

thanks for sharing

The very interesting writing @the-alien I really enjoy your writing

This is wonderful, hilarious post. It remained me of a few things actually: Scientology (specifically, the many South Park episodes about it) and a videogame called Undertale, when you spoke about the soul and its collection.

Or you can just get lost at Mount Everest or join the ancient Mayas and end up in a museum like this a few centuries later:

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