Friday, November 2, 2012

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Nietzsche is a XIX-century Transhumanist... - Философът Фридрих Ницше е трансхуманист от 19-ти век...

Have you thought about that? :)

The concept of Superman (Übermensch), one to whom current humans are like the apes to humans.

Check his work for yourself, right from the beginning: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm

I won't discuss the work as a whole, the "new moral", and Nazi's abuse of the term "Superman".

I care for Nietzsche's "Superman" from a transhumanist point of view: a superman in cognitive and functional sense.

The "dead God" and the creation of a new god is the advent of science and technology, the work had apparently been influenced by the then-new evolution theory of Darwin.

The "creation of God" is the "singularity", the ultimate advent of technology and the creation of either cyborgs, DNA-or-whatever enhanced humans, and a self-improving general intelligence/AGI/AI.

Zarathustra seems to crave for fast progress and criticizes the sluggishly developing society and  humanity. I sympathize with him on that point - people are not aware of the unexpected technology that is coming very soon and will make a lot of the current things obsolete and archaic. I've shared some thoughts about the absurd archaism in some human activities, and their end in the form they exist now*, I will explain more in a dedicated work.

Enjoy! :)

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* Of course, there's a chance that people would reject some of the technologies which will make other technologies absurd and obsolete and would make the people to question their-own superiority etc., I think it's in fact likely to happen so...

However this is so consonant with a "superhuman-human" and a "human-ape" relations. See the movie "The Planet of the Apes" (1968) and put yourself in the human's from the future shoes  - you might be intellectually and technologically superior, but your "enemy" might be yet physically vastly stronger and more aggressive than you, especially if there's a small amount of transhumanists and a huge amount of people who don't understand and don't accept to live together with thinking machines.

 History tells about such events, when barbarian hordes anihilate civilizations and societies which are centuries or a millenium ahead of them. That's one of the unfortunate possibilities if humanity rejects the technologies and the new technological species that will revolutionize their life.
 (I deliberately don't specify what exact things I'm talking about, see in a more elaborate paper.)

By the way, recently I found that case told in a humorous SF short story of the Bulgarian writer Lyuben Dilov. Humanity gets in touch with extraterrestrial civilization, the aliens leave an ambassador on Earth. He notices that human race has a lot of social problems and has undeveloped technologies, so he shares know-how in medecine and in an uncorrupted and fair-minded political system. The humanity rejects both. The new inventions would change the corrupted system and the status-quo and would steal the power from the corrupted politicians - nobody would agree to use it. The only technology humanity accepts are books, which can fit in a bead, so they may collect them. Well, we already have those books... :)

** Thanks to S.  for reminding me about the "Übermensch" concept of Nietzsche, when I've spoken with him about related social aspects of the up-coming transhumanism era, compared to the current state of the affairs.

See alsoPhilosophical and Interdisciplinary Discussion on General Intelligence, AGI and Superintelligence Safety and Human Moral | Cognitive Origins of the Concepts of Human Soul and its Immortality | Free Will and How it Originates Cognitively | Animate Being and Soul and the Cognitive Reason for the Believe that "Thinking Machines can't have a Soul and Consciousness" |  Technology  Making us more Humane | The Egoism of Humanity | And more

Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

3.
....I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man?
All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass man?
What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame.
Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.
Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and phantom. But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?
Lo, I teach you the Superman!
The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman SHALL BE the meaning of the earth!....



Tags: philosopy, философия, Ницше, супермен, свръхчовек, трансхуманизъм, сингулярност, прогрес, научно-техническа-революция, наука, самоусъвършенстващи се мислещи машини, мислещи машини, универсален изкуствен разум; изкуствен интелект, човешки интелект; ум, напредък; маймуни, човекоподобни, Планетата на маймуните, филм.

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