The basic argument for the feasibility of transhumanism

What objections can be raised against this argument? I'm looking both for good objections and objections that many people are likely to raise, even if they aren't really any good.

I'm not sure if this is an objection many people are likely to raise, or a good one, but in any case, here are my initial thoughts:

Transhumanism is just a set of values, exactly like humanism is a set of values. The feasibility of transhumanism can be shown from a compiling a list of those values that are said to qualify someone as a transhumanist, and the observed existence of people with such values, whom we then slap a label on, and say: Here is a transhumanist!

Half an hour on google should probably suffice to persuade the sceptic that transhumanists do in fact exist, and therefore transhumanism is feasible. And so we're done.

I realize that this is not what you mean when you refer to the feasibility of transhumanism. You want to make an argument for the possiblity of "actual transhumans". Something along the lines of: "It is feasible that humans with quantitatively or qualitatively superior abilities, in some domain, relative to some baseline (such as the best, or the average performance of some collection of humans, perhaps all humans) can exist." Which seems trivially true, for the reasons you mention.

Where are the boundaries of human design space? Who do we decide to put in the plain old human category? Who do we put in the transhuman category — and who is just another human with some novel bonus attribute?

If one goes for such a definition of a transhuman as the one I propose above, are world record holding athletes then weakly transhuman, since they go beyond the previously recorded bounds of human capability in strength, or speed, or endurance?

I'd say yes, but justifying that would require a longer reply. One question one would have to answer is: Who is a human? (The answers one would get to this question has likely changed quite a bit since the label "human" was first invented.)

If one allows the category of things that receives a "yes" in reply to the question "is this one a human?" to change at all, if one allows that category to expand or indeed to grow over time, perhaps by an arbitrary amount. (Which is excactly what seems, to me at least, to have happened, and seems to continue to be the case.) Then, perhaps, there will never be a transhuman. Only a growing category of things which one considers to be "human". Including some humans that are happier, better, stronger and faster than any current or previously recorded human.

In order to say "this one is a transhuman" one needs to first decide upon some limits to what one will call "human", and then decide, arbitrarily, that whoever goes beyond these limits, we will put into this new category, instead of continuing to relax the boundaries of humanity, so as to include the new cases, as is usual.

An idea at least good enough for sf: biotech is illegal but available. People improve (or "improve") their children and eventually, what's considered to be normal drifts pretty far from what we'd consider to be baseline human.

Typos: 'in . the', 'exists in a tiny of life', 'other possibly life', 'an chain'.

Here's an interesting problem: why do we live in this era? Imagine the people that lived before we migrated out of Africa; when the human population was less than 10,000. What were the odds of being one of those people? At least less than winning the lottery. So we can conclude that the likelihood of existing in a specific era is proportional to the amount of consciousness in existence during that time period.

This presents a major problem for a technological singularity as the odds of living before the singularity turned all matter in the universe into consciousness are virtually nil. So there will be no singularity, and it's almost frightening to imagine what we can conclude from this for our future.

Here's an interesting problem: why do we live in this era? Imagine the people that lived before we migrated out of Africa; when the human population was less than 10,000. What were the odds of being one of those people? At least less than winning the lottery, obviously. So we can conclude that the likelihood of living in a specific time period is proportional to the amou

There are two arguments that are at the heart of criticising the feasibility of transhumanism. One is skeptical about whether we can gain the science to achieve this aim and the other asserts that, whilst the tech may be possible, human beings will use it to kill each other in vast quantities.

The latter seems a more fundamental problem with human nature. You want personalized medicine? That requires the wide distribution of Bio-tech printers - printers that would be just as happy to print out a lethal, tailor-made virus.

This argument is as old as the hills. But other than Totalitarian snooping on EVERYBODY - How do you prevent widely distributed uber-tech from being abused?

I'm looking both for ... objections

As "V_V" implies, the existence of other forms of life and other forms of intelligence does not imply the possibility of radical life extension or of superintelligence.

It is easy enough to imagine a future in which biotechnology permits all sorts of altered lives and altered states without going much beyond the lifespan or intelligence of anything already in the animal kingdom, and in which computers, robots, and computer programs continue to be as brittle as they are now. So history continues and becomes posthuman, but not transhuman.

As has been raised by others, just because the design space is large, does not imply that the possibilities have high probability of being actualized.

Your argument shows that there is possibility. And, I think, nothing more. But yes, exempting existential catastrophe, I don't see how transhumanism is avoidable.

I don't really see how the argument for feasibility of H+ has much to do with the size of the design space for life (and AI, and nanotech,...) as long as its non-empty. After all, there's a huge design space for impossibilities as well. Or am I misunderstanding the argument?

There are some rather mundane improvements (at least compared to the design space) that would be enough (if realized) to show the feasibility -- say, intelligence augmentation, brain-computer hybrids.

Would an EMP effectively disable any implanted nanotechnology? If so, how can nanotechnology be made EMP-proof?

(replying here because the karma system apparently doesn't allow me to reply in the original subthread)

Standard evolutionary theory. Evolution did not have to take the path it took by any stretch of the imagination.

It could have created a zilion other varieties of bacteria, or rodents, or something else, but I wouldn't call those things transhumans.

While it is certainly plausible that humans can be improved to some extent using genetic engineering, given the state of the evidence there is no reason to believe that the typical transhumanist fantasies such as extreme lifespans or extreme intelligence will be feasible with this approach.

AI and non-biochemical nanotech are even more speculative technologies.

EDIT:

We can't really say whether the space of all the possible minds includes something that is substantially different from a human mind and yet be intelligent as much as or even more than a human at things humans do, (and be also manufacturable by humans and not alien enough that humans can't interact with it in any meaningful way).

Similarly, we can't say whether the space of all the possible types of chemistries includes something substantially different than biochemistry-as-we-know-it, and yet still capable of sustaining processes and forming structures of complexity and efficiency comparable to our biochemistry, and be compatible with the physical and chemical properties of our environment.

The difference in life experiences between the most wealthy and everyone else (much less the least wealthy) might as well be a transhuman drift. Better educated, higher average iq, longer lives, more fun, better nutrition, better health. The world has honored that diversity for generations. We grumble about those few super-rich, but so far we see few castles surrounded by peasants with pitchforks and torches to drive the monsters out. Super-fame is enough like a psychic mind control power that, again, we can guess a psychic transhuman wouldn't be banned if such a person came to be. Not so much magic but imbedded Skype. The super wealthy and super famous... for every John that gets shot and George that gets stabbed we still have a Paul and a Ringo. And a Yoko.

When transhumans appear they will not be banned.

Actually it's not even an argument, it's just an assertion: "There are lots of unexplored possibilities" How do you know?