Post-humanism is the answer to achieve prosperity, peace and eternal life of all human beings. If every countries in the world, or simply if all of humanity will change their personal/religious/political/philosophical views and identities to post-humanist views, many of the world’s current problems will be solved immediately — which is we are what we perceive ourselves as ‘conscious biological human beings’ which happen to have existed on this planet together.
Because, all of humanity’s problems and challenges arose from the need of or desire for their survival. We invented all these stories such as identify, ethics, morality, race, religion, countries, politics, money, work, education, so on. and all those speficifc inventions such as tools and technologies, even language to support our survival. All of these are means to support the end (and pun not intended), which is our survival.
And of course the practical challenges for access and availability of limited (are we totally sure about this?) natural and human created resources themselves has always been a primary challenge and factor that triggers the fear for our survival and hence competition (such as wars) between different societies/countries/groups.
However, since the day human beings achieved the creation of current (and upcoming versions of) AI technology, not only the whole paradigm regarding challenge for survival and limited resources, but also our identify, our existence as ‘human being’ has fundamentally shifted.
To be continued . . .
Hi Soe Lin. This post is very sweet. But I think this part is wrong:
I don’t think transhumanist or posthumanist philosophy would solve anything immediately. This philosophy would only help at all insofar as this philosophy promoted long-term investment in scientific and technological research and development.
Hi Yarrow. Thanks for taking time sharing your comment on my thoughts.
I actually have been planning to add details to my post as I shared it while I was still finishing my thoughts in my head. But this is not to mean I'm dismissing your view.
let me reply with sneak peak of what I am planning to share in details later:
Yes, I support long-term investment in scientific and technological research and development to enrich and probably extend human life. But I consider technological post-humanism/transhumanism as just one of the components/activities of Post-humanism as a broader philosophy.
What I been thinking is post-humanism as a philosophy/practical way of living life from absolute fundamental perspective - regarding ourselves as something like "we-know-we-are-what-we-identify-ourselves-as-'human'-but-we-actually-are-one-of-the-countless-entities-in-this-vast-cosmos". And then working everything else out forward from that point, kind of perspective.
I am sure you won't judge, but the above statement may seem somehow too extreme or may have been put forward and experimented terribly in similar sense by others throughout history. But I like to try again this time. With all the advancements in biology, neuroscience, etc (and of course AI) made by us human I feel even more motivated and optimistic that this worldview could be the way forward for solving many problems.
That sounds like an interesting idea. I think transhumanist philosophy or life philosophy is not in a very good place right now and could be improved a lot. It's cold and dry, and not very fun or beautiful. Some transhumanists come off as creepy, like the villains in James Bond movies.
A lot of transhumanist thought is not very diverse. For example, there aren't enough perspectives from women. The transhumanist movement or community has historically been very slanted towards libertarianism and hasn't had a lot of political diversity. If transhumanism is supposed to be a philosophy that can speak to human beings universally, this is too narrow, and it will only end up appealing to a small minority of people.
I think the sort of transhumanist philosophy we need is somewhere between typical academic philosophy, memoir/personal essay, and art. It needs to be beautiful. It needs to fun, or at least more fun that the transhumanist philosophy of the past.
I think it also needs to be more open to emotions, to women and the diversity of humanity, and to a bigger range of political perspectives.
Anyway, just my two cents.
I want to start/join a non-profit working on promoting post-humanism - mainly as an ideology, philosophy, attitude, mindset, and then gradually as practical movement, political, public policy efforts.
This is my LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/soe-lin-htut/
(Oh I'm not promoting myself/looking for a job. I'm only expressing my enthusiasm on the idea and also sharing more info about myself as I am still a new member in this community.)