Ethics as Warfare: Metaphysics and Morality of the Era of Transhumanism
post by Dubioustunic · 2019-05-20T20:28:42.366Z · LW · GW · 3 commentsContents
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I studied philosophy and used to be a Catholic, and wrote this book on transhumanism, available in PDF form for free. It is about 140 pages.
https://dubioustunic.blogspot.com/2019/04/ethics-as-warfare-metaphysics-and.html
Ethics as Warfare is a book that describes the philosophical confrontation between transhumanism and the Christian tradition. In the Christian case, faith in the Word, who was incarnate as man, has us maintain the human species. In the non-Christian case, the human essence is no longer the ground of Natural Law. In fact, we are to become beings capable of sculpting Natural Law, like unto gods. This is the meaning of the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil." This god-potential of mankind is obviously a threat to the Christian tradition, as well as Enlightenment values; yet it is inevitable. So where will you end up?
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comment by Said Achmiz (SaidAchmiz) · 2019-05-20T20:57:55.249Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I studied philosophy and used to be a Catholic
How would you describe your current views, if you don’t mind me asking?
Replies from: Dubioustunic↑ comment by Dubioustunic · 2019-05-20T21:37:13.481Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I consider myself to be engaged in a war with the Most High.
Replies from: rsaarelm↑ comment by rsaarelm · 2019-05-22T08:49:34.981Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
There's a bit of a subtext here of trying to figure out whether you're coming from a different tradition or are an internet crazy person. This forum doesn't have much of a culture that can tell Christian intellectual tradition apart from schizophrenia, so terse comments that assume shared idiom won't go over very well.
FWIW, I'm finding the book quite interesting and non-crazy so far. Thanks for the link.
For constructive examples of the culture gap, I'm not sure I've seen the way the book uses 'spiritual' as describing various real-world processes (sex is not spiritual but fertilization is spiritual, using antidepressants is not spiritual but recovering from depression via long-term natural cognition is spiritual) before, and that looks like some role-playing game magic system worldbuilding to me. The only scholarly use for the word I'd expect would be calling worship and prayer spiritual activities. I guess the book's way of use comes from something like Aristotle's teleology?