Trans what?

[Giulio Prisco]

FYC, enjoy, criticism welcome:

Turing Church newsletter. Trans what? Reflections on transhumanists,
transgenders, and the Ctrl-Left. Review of Martine Rothblatt's "From
Transgender to Transhuman."
https://www.turingchurch.com/p/trans-what

[John Clark]

Giulio Prisco wrote on Trans what? :

> Physical immortality, mind uploading and all that will materialize one day but not within my lifetime. Or yours. I’ll die. And you.

Yes and that's why I'm a big fan of liquid nitrogen, it might not work but it's a hell of a lot better than flattering an invisible man in the sky and hoping such fawning would give you immortality.

 

> I also want to take distance from the transhumanist practice of worshipping rationality, which to me is not an end but a tool, a very good tool for many applications but not the only tool and not always the best tool.

Rationality is of no help in determining matters of taste, it cannot for example prove that you should love person X more than person Y or that life is better than death or pleasure is better than pain or existence better than nonexistence, but other than that rationality is the best tool for everything; it may not be the perfect tool but the perfect tool does not exist so we'll have to settle for the best.  

 

> I also find annoying that many transhumanists tend to have inflated perceptions of their own intelligence. Nothing wrong with self-esteem of course, but come on, there’s only one smartest person in the world and that person is not you, or me.

I'm certainly not the smartest man in the world and I don't come anywhere close to that, however I don't think it's being unduly conceited to say I'm smarter than Louie Gohmert or Marjorie Taylor Greene, after all that is a very low bar to clear.

 

> Another reason I stopped calling myself a transhumanist is that, today, the prefix “trans” is used for something else.

Yeah, words change their meaning with time; not long ago "gay" just meant happy; these days if you're feeling particularly content and tell somebody you're gay they may get the wrong impression. I worry that Zuckerberg's metaverse may become confused with Everett's multiverse.

 

> I’m a libertarian in the original and true sense of the term - to me, personal freedom and autonomy are central primary values.

I could not agree with you more! Unfortunately "libertarian" now means little more than "let me keep my military assault rifle and 10,000 rounds of ammunition".  

John K Clark

[Giulio Prisco]

Hi John! See my reply to Natasha on cryonics:

< My bad, I didn't mention cryonics at all. Yes, for those who don't
share my ideas on the possibility of technological resurrection via
magic tech in the far future, it seems that you are right: "human
cryopreservation is indeed Plan A," and the only hope of indefinite
lifespan for people our age and also for anyone younger who can read
this (the possible exception is today's babies, perhaps). I used to
have a cryopreservation contract with Cryonics Institute. Then I
couldn't continue my life insurance policy when I moved from one
country to another, and didn't have enough money for a new one - I
preferred to put food on the table for my family. If I become rich
(very unlikely, but you never know) I'll sign up with you guys at
Alcor if you make me a good price! >

Now that I think of it, perhaps Zuckerberg's metaverse IS Everett's
multiverse? :-)

Perhaps not, or not yet - but the two concepts come together in Riz
Virk's Everettian version of the simulation hypothesis:
https://turingchurch.net/book-review-the-simulated-multiverse-by-rizwan-virk-e3cadd505d6d

You say: < I could not agree with you more! Unfortunately

"libertarian" now means little more than "let me keep my military
assault rifle and 10,000 rounds of ammunition". >

Not so, but I realize that Americans can have this impression today.
What is called "libertarianism" by certain sectors of far right in the
US is really a perversion of true libertarianism. But certain sectors
of the far left (what I call Ctrl-Left) react by taking the explicit
anti-libertarian positions that I'm condemning. This is very dangerous
because it pushes many reasonable moderates, including true
libertarians, right into the arms of the far right.

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[Lawrence Crowell]

Cryonics is a sort of techno-resurrectionist belief. It is rather silly IMO. A LN frozen human is no more alive than an Egyptian mummy was when the seal it up in its eternal tomb meant to convey it to the domain of the gods.

LC

[John Clark]

On Sat, Aug 27, 2022 at 8:46 AM Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Cryonics is a sort of techno-resurrectionist belief.

Yes, but unlike religion it's a belief in a possibility not a belief in a certainty. Personally I would rate the probability of it working at less than 50% but greater than 0%. The main uncertainty I have is not scientific but social; will Mr. Jupiter brain, or whoever's around at the time, bother to revive me? The one thing in my favor is that if Drexler style nanotechnology is available, and if it's not then I'm not getting revived, then everything will either be easy to do and cheap or impossible, nothing will be possible but difficult and expensive. I think my value will be close to zero, I just hope it will not be exactly zero.

 

> It is rather silly IMO.

Cryonics might or might not be wrong, time will tell, but it is not silly. I would define a silly idea as an idea that can never be proved or disproved and Cryonics it's not of that nature. And if it turns out not to work then that's a shame but liquid nitrogen will not make me any deader.

> A LN frozen human is no more alive than an Egyptian mummy was when the seal it up in its eternal tomb meant to convey it to the domain of the gods.

 

The most important part of a human being, the information on how the atoms in its brain are arranged, are certainly not contained in an Egyptian mummy. This is because the Egyptians carefully preserved every part of the body to the best of their ability EXCEPT for the brain, they unceremoniously yanked the brain out of the skull in pieces through the nose with an iron hook and discarded the debris. Cryonics companies such as ALCOR use a somewhat different procedure.  

 John K Clark

[Lawrence Crowell]

Cryonics is a "sciency" idea, but I think it is far from being science. It is more science fiction.

LC

[John Clark]

On Mon, Aug 29, 2022 at 7:49 PM Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Cryonics is a "sciency" idea, but I think it is far from being science. It is more science fiction.

Science fiction is speculation about what may be possible in the future, and sometimes that speculation turns out to be sound, and that sure beats religion which is pure fantasy. Nobody is claiming it is a scientific fact that Cryonics will work, but as long as the fluid flow in the brain remains laminar during the freezing process and does not become turbulent then I see nothing inherently ridiculous about the idea that with enough computational fire power the information on how the parts in the brain were arranged before it was frozen could be determined. And the only difference between a living person in a cadaver is the way the atoms are positioned.

John K Clark