>watching star trek
>boy in a Hitler haircut
>overall theme was DATA's superiority
This philosophy that we've kind of skipped over because Nazis and fascism and shit scared it out of us, what is it? I see it dropped a lot in Roddenberry's work, most heavily in Andromeda.
I don't quite mean transhumanism, which is inorganic and thus contrary to purity, I mean really studying what exactly "superior" means. It honestly could be the societal cure to pathological leftism.
>>277372
>I mean really studying what exactly "superior" means
>pathological leftism
wow, I can tell this is going to be a great thread
>>277391
It's a philosophy thread, its a legitimate thread and clearly influenced by Nietzsche in parts.
Why you mad tho?
>>277402
Namedropping a philosopher in your second post doesn't make your thread a philosophy thread.
>>277478
Does referencing Hitler in the OP?
>>277498
Make you a Nazi? No.
>>277372
>inorganic and thus contrary to purity
How does that follow?
Aristoteles virtue ethics?
>>277506
In most theories of transhumanism you're modifying the human body in a way that wouldn't be achievable in a natural setting. If you were to trust that evolution is the best path forward, which if we are to believe humans are the apex species we are, then it's somewhat logical to trust nature in the question of "what is perfect".
If you were to apply electronics or even make modification to the genome, those changes don't represent what you truly are (as human, what is "human") and therefore aren't a valid representation of you.
Again, the keyword you need to remember is "purity".
>>277609
But evolution isn't necessarily the "best" path. Natural selection is a tinkerer.
>>277609
You think this post is deep, I bet. In fact, all you've done is demonstrate a shallow understanding of evolution.
>>277620
It's mathematical.
The simple function is a lot of variation, a little bit of selection and provided the selection does not have a dysgenic effect you're going forward, it might be a slow movement due to poor selection but it's still forward.
>>277627
>ad hominem: the post, the only example you'll ever need
>>277654
I'm just confused--do you think of evolution as somehow a process that separates humans from nature and makes them more pure? I just don't think you understand that there isn't as much agency involved on our part as you think there is. Evolution isn't an option or a 'best' anything, it's simply a natural process.
>>277654
>it might be a slow movement due to poor selection but it's still forward
Isn't that exactly what transhumanists say they will fix? Fast-tracking and guiding our evolution?
>>277654
>>277609
Wrong, natural selection doesn't move 'forward', it branches into billions of different little pathways and is influenced by a myriad of factors. Evolution is not the linear marching of a monkey turning into a man, it is life as we know it adapting to the environment and changing interactions between other organisms on Earth. By this logic, we are in no way some beautiful art piece created by mother nature herself, our consciousness is merely an adaptive curiosity.
>>277670
>>277667
I don't think anything.
When you give humanity such intricate control over it's own identity, how probable is it that it will create something "better" than the original? This almost dates back to the tired know thyself, until you truly so you aren't in a position to judge.
And no, of course not, animals evolve too.
>>277677
>Wrong, natural selection doesn't move 'forward', it branches into billions of different little pathways and is influenced by a myriad of factors.
Variation.
>Evolution is not the linear marching of a monkey turning into a man, it is life as we know it adapting to the environment and changing interactions between other organisms on Earth.
Selection.
>By this logic, we are in no way some beautiful art piece created by mother nature herself, our consciousness is merely an adaptive curiosity.
Find me a monkey on a typewriter.
>>277691
>>Evolution is not the linear marching of a monkey turning into a man, it is life as we know it adapting to the environment and changing interactions between other organisms on Earth.
>Selection.
"selection" is just the process that made intelligent, social, tool-using hominids more adapted to their environment than their competitors, there is no goal for it and you're clearly reading in more agency than is actually involved
>>277691
>When you give humanity such intricate control over it's own identity,
I'm unsure what you mean by this. You've been vague about what exactly you think transhumanism should change about people.
>how probable is it that it will create something "better" than the original?
It's equally probably that it will fuck up. How much faith do you have in the ability of humans to perfectly implement their ideas? Something is bound to go wrong with these technologies, or they'll be used unethically.
>inb4 "muh Overtranshuman doesn't abide by those ethical categories" or "Any action that purifies the essence of man through transhumanization is justified by the process of perfecting evolution" or whatever
>>277691
What I'm trying to say is that evolution is not linear. Saying that we are 'better' than X organism is wrong. A plague that targets developed frontal cortexes could wipe our species off of the planet in heartbeat, our own intelligence could lead to nuclear war. Whereas dumb as dirt cockroaches will outlive us, and even today insects outnumber us to an insane degree, which by natural selection's standard of 'breed and spread your genes' means they are winning in the evolutionary race.
Evolution is not linear, and it is wrong to think of it as such.
>>277717
Am I?
>>277720
Maybe I've been vague because I'm unwilling to form an opinion? It has the possibility of going bad, even if the effects aren't known for thousands of years.
>>277729
So many what ifs but so willfully contrarian to the greatest possibility.
We are the apex species. There are no aliens. None of what you mentioned has happened and if it did we'd quarantine it. Have faith in humans as an advance life form.
>>277729
The goal is to live long enough to reproduceand spread your genes and insure the offspring live long enough to pass theirs on .numbers could be bad ,for example.let's say cockroaches somehow overpopulate and they run out of food.then there was no point reproducing so fast if your decendents all die out.only one rule truly applies when it comes to evolution ,natural selection.that's it.if humanities intelligence consistantly gets in the way of survival we will lose it.if the cockroaches reproductive speed causes famine they will lose it.
>>277802
what...what are you even trying to say
Evolution is most easily understood as pouring a bunch of sand through a colander.
Most of the sand is going to fall through the holes, but some will be in the right position to land on the colander and stay there.
Similarly, evolution is nothing but a bunch of random mutations, and some of them are lucky enough to be successful enough to breed and pass themselves on. So if each generation is another colander placed below the last one (say you wait for the first one to settle before pouring what's left into the next one) , you're eventually going to end up with some sand that is statistically lucky enough to have passed every ordeal its environment has produced.
>>277372
>This philosophy that we've kind of skipped over because Nazis
>philosophy that we've kind of skipped
>because Nazis
We're missing a piece of history, its true
Picard speaking still btw
>>277880
>luck
The biggest deflection in logic's history. It ignores the reasoning for why particular sand gets through, its a bad analogy. A better analogy is salmon swimming upstream, where its not a simple matter of falling down but in fact climbing up, where the best swimmer-or whatever is needed- gets through. Most modern mammals are extremely well-adapted, theyre only smaller because less/smaller prey after the Ice Age and big animals dying out. They all survived, like us, because theyre natural marvels of design, forwarding a specific gene progression that continues to get better at what it does. Our adaptation of nature's marvels is the inspiration for our technology and tactics. We "emulate" the claw with the blade, the thunder in our cannons, the defensive stance of the mantis in our combat, the wrestling of a lion, the boxing of a kangaroo, the flight of a bird in our planes, of insects in out helicopters, flying squirrels in our gliders, the form of a whale in our boats, you can go on.
Mere "luck" doesnt do justice to those feats of engineering in nature. In a way our mind adopting nature's tools is our form of evolution, our "genes" are both natural and social. There is a human conciousness that lives beyond any one human, it is a narrow view to suggest that evolution should merely be associated with genetic mutations when the social mutations of jumanoty have been far more important to our success. Psychological tests show people turn out fucked up when they grow up alone and isolated. Our social constructs are just as real as our natural makeup, both have contributed to our survival, and removing the social aspects removes the true ingenuity of the human mind as a factor in our development.
>>278357
Alright, replace luck with 'statistical probability'. It's not necessarily a good thing that the piece of sand at the last colander is still there, but it could be viewed as such if the object of it all is to keep that piece of sand in the running. It's not necessarily a good thing that our genetic line made it through the last 4 billion years of evolution, but we view it as such.
Hell, the only reason we have such a drive to carry on said bloodline is because everything that didn't, died out.
>>277691
Selection is just selection of the tool most fit for a task, something which humans are very capable of doing.
>>277802
>We are the apex species
Plenty of apex predators in the world. All it means is that nothing regularly preys on you for sustenance. As far as I'm aware there's no special word for humanity's place in the ecosystem.
>>277802
>Maybe I've been vague because I'm unwilling to form an opinion?
Are you even thinking about these positions, though? You could discuss transhumanism much more intelligently. Your arguments are really muddled.
>It has the possibility of going bad, even if the effects aren't known for thousands of years.
What do you mean? Are you trying to express agreement with me?
>>277372
The Anglos got it right:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden
>>277802
>there are no aliens
Why would aliens want anything to do with us, we haven't even left our own solar system. We still kill each other by the hundreds, we have bombs capable of causing our extinction. We also aren't too friendly to things that arent human (e.g. every extinct animal/enslaved/domesticated animal). If anything, first contact would cause a lot more problems for them than what it would be worth if we're still stuck planetside behaving like we do.
>>277372
>boy in a Hitler haircut
>Hitler haircut
That's just a mushroom cut with a part. Mushroom cuts were standard in the early-to-mid 90s.
