THE TRANSHUMANIST SCRAPBOOK: CONSCIOUSNESS AND COSMOLOGICAL CHOICE
Mr. L.B. shared this article with me, and it's so thought-provoking I had to pass it along, because it raises the implicit cosmological choices behind the transhumanist agenda. Just by way of refreshing our memories, when Dr. Scott D. deHart and I were writing Transhumanism: A Grimoire of Alchemical Agendas, we struggled to find a way to explain it. We finally hit upon the idea that what it really was was not only a kind of alchemy, but an alchemy rooted in a fundamentally materialist cosmology, as it sought to "re-ascend the ladder" of alchemical descent from androgyne through mineral, vegetable, and animal man via the creation of technological chimeras using Transhumanism's four favorite technologies, the GRIN technologies - genetics, robotics, information processing technologies, and nano-technology - to engineer, chimerical creatures and blends with man. At the top of this ladder - what we called "alchemo-mineral man" - was the fusion of man and mineral, i.e., of man and silicon in the form of computer chips, and so on.
But there's another implicit danger, and this interesting article does a fairly good job of outlining it:
The Transhumanism Trap: Why Biohacking Chains Consciousness to the Material World
Now don't worry, I'm not into the practices of "astral projection" or any other of these "spiritual practices" being suggested here. Indeed, I have profound reservations about many of them. What the article does do is remind us of a very important point: the choice of a "transhumanist life" is also the implicit choice of a cosmology by which one intends to live one's life. Mind you, I am not talking about a Parkinson's victim choosing a chip to help deal with the tremors associated with it. Rather, I am talking about the more genuinely transhumanist agendas of "memory enhancement," and "downloading and uploading' a person's memory; I am talking about the use of genetic and nano-technologies to extend human life spans dramatically, into, conceivably, the realm of "virtual immortality." I am talking about those "telepathic" technologies referenced in the article itself, and about which I blogged previously this week. I am talking about what the article is talking about: the implicit possibility that an individual person could, by dint of the technology itself, be more or less chained, perhaps indefinitely, to the material world, and not allowing consciousness or personhood - whatever one wishes to call it - to "move on" even if he or she wanted to. And for those genuine materialists out there, for whom emotional and intellectual life is nothing but the sum total of chemistry and electronic impulses and so on, the prospect is no different. One can easily imagine reaching a stage of weariness and moral apathy, a kind of sociopathy we can only guess at now.
Either way, in other words, the choice to walk down the transhumanist path is a cosmological, and yes, spiritual choice. Indeed, as the article itself points out, this could actually serve to deaden human consciousness (howsoever one accounts for it), and make such humans truly post-human:
"While spiritual awakening sets consciousness free from the limitations of the body and the five senses, depending on a body integrated with technology for evolution and heightened perception only serves to further bind our existence and perception to the the transient material realm, which is only a small part of our existence, and has a definitive end. Furthermore, altering the body with technology could interfere with our natural capacity to use our time in the physical world to awaken consciousness"
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“Virtual immortality” sounds about as much fun as virtual sex, or tits on a boar, or near beer. Hah!, jus kidding, I don’t drink alcoholic beaverages anymore.
Transhumanism = corporate ascension.
Profoundly creeepy and pathetic, in so many ways.
Imagine for a moment that you are a Transhumanist and not some old fashioned wacko restrained by the Establishment. You are ‘hip, and with it’. You are a modern man, or woman, not bound to your past, and certainly not bound to your current limited physical and mental experience of life. You want to break free of the limitations the ‘structure’ of Society has relegated you to become. You are not going to become ‘hitched’ to some other man or woman in a traditional marriage. And, why not feel that way? Has not the Establishment failed to produce a calm, peaceful existence between all of the peoples on this Earth? Has not the Establishment produced endless wars?
So, give way to the new, ever expanding, never before experienced reality. No, seriously this has never, ever in the history of mankind ever been experienced. You will be ‘first-in-line’ to get this new and exciting experience. I promise, and to assure you of my sincerity I am offering a “money back guarantee” that this
will transform your life as “nothing” has ever done in the past, and I do mean “NO-THING.”
You clearly recognize humans are still in the early stages of evolution REGARDLESS of what your mom and dad believe. Surely you see the next logical step forward, which includes using all available technologies to evolve both humans in transition, and anyone in Transhumanism. Listen to me, there is even the potential for us to become human beings. We would be radically different from ordinary people, so as to deserve the title “post humans”.
This idea of human transformation is not new. So, give way to the new, ever expanding, never before experienced reality. No, seriously this has never, ever in the history of mankind ever been experienced. You will be ‘first-in-line’ to get this new and exciting experience. I promise, and to assure you of my sincerity I
am offering a “money back guarantee” that this will transform your life as “nothing” has ever done in the past, and I do mean “NO-THING.”
“How transparent can you get!!!???”
“How transparent do you want me to be???!!!”
‘Once the hand is laid on the plough, No One, Who looks back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’
“I have a little looking glass upon my parlor shelf,
if you’ll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.
Will you step into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly.
“Oh no, no”, said the little fly, “to ask me is in vain,
for who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”
Some will fall into their high-tech, high-minded webs of deceit; for they…? NEED to believe. Just don’t tie the rest of us up, in your happy-trail fantasy transhumanist cocoons of happily-ever-after tomorrowlands.
Nature wastes nothing, except individuals …
my personal DNA must and shall prevail, however, at any cost…
and move the human genome forward …
therefore :
I am making this one-time-only offer to today’s readers :
Lease my DNA ( short & long-term contracts available upon AOC )
Download a FREE Demonstration Template of my DNA Fourier Transform with Nuclear-Resonant Enhancements ( for home-use only ) !
Sign me,
Bored in Gaza
Or maybe their greed for everybody and everything on this Earth belong to them. Cybermen the Borg anyone we who are left are to be absorbed into the collective resistance is futile. The Johnny Debb movie Transcendence is only the latest pop culture dance with this idea. What really lies behind this is the desire to escape the fact the Transhumanist wish to escape their biology and their ties to this planet and their unlimited power and control fantasies.
There is something rather suspicious about the video on getting a door-opening chip implant. Instead of going through all that tedious process, the engaging gentleman in question – apparently successful and presumably intelligent – could have used one of the simple mental techniques available to train himself not to forget his keys.
The reasoning that “if it is safe for pets it’s safe for me” is patently spurious.
completely off-topic (and I apologize profusely for this);
as I have stated previously from the very beginning and no-one who/whatsoever took me seriously that Edward Snowdon (or his collective ilk) has been reporting from Switzerland (not Russia) the whole time; the fact that he’s just ‘now’ seeking sanction in Switzerland is bogus; he’s been there the whole friggin’ time-
http://rt.com/news/185836-switzerland-snowden-testify-extradition/
hey, folks, I’m not as dumb as I look-
Larry in Germany
I wonder if this has to do with Rev. 9:6
I know about bubkes from the bible, so I googled it. It sure sounds like it to me.
it also sounds like a state of limbo
I had a HUGE attack of sleep paralysis last night, complete with gray hag, the works… except I am not confused about these events, don’t think they are real and also know they are not dreams. It is a sort of limbo, another dimension of consciousness, and in it we are supposed to be terrified. That’s the hallmark of this dimension. We are supposed to be terrified there… or it terrifies us as if we are too hypnotized by this world… I am not sure.
But it is found often by people who wake up with their body paralyzed from REM… which is normal, but you’re not supposed to wake up in the middle of it, and if you do you are apt to find yourself paralyzed temporarily and in a state half here and half there and half neither here nor there, so to speak… a kind of limbo….
It was propitious to come to this post after that because it illustrated to me that grounding oneself in this world with things like chips and sensory augmentation is UTTERLY wrong for enlightening beings. This world is NOT reality itself. It is an imposed one, but not THE truth.
Actually, I said that wrong. I do thing it’s real, but not the kind of real that can hurt you in meatspace. It’s not this dimension, not one that harms you physically.