195 replies to this topic

[reason]

That which can be done will be done.

That's demonstrably untrue over any finite time span or set of potential actors. There are many, many things we as a species could have done over the past century but have not for one reason or another - and show no signs of doing in the near future.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme
reason@longevitymeme.org
http://www.longevitymeme.org

[bioconservative]

Lazarus Long

How far back do you want to repeal the Renaissance?

How much of a good thing is enough to force us into a self imposed dark age?

That is the slippery slope I think many of us fear.

You couldn't wait to break out the reversal test on me, could you Mr. Long? I read Bostrom too. [":)] [lol]

[ag24]

> Is that it Dr. de Grey, just those seven things?

As you say, the devil is in the detail. The reason you doubt my timescales for postponing aging -- set out here:

http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/time.htm

is, I would imagine, because most biogerontologists doubt them (at least in what they say and don't say publicly). Unfortunately, the reason for that is not very good: it is partly that biologists have little training in developing piecemeal manipulations of complex systems and thus focus on "holistic" ones, which are probably absent in the case of aging, and partly that some of my proposed methods involve areas of biology that are distant from what most gerontology conferences (my own excepted!) cover, so most gerontologists (who are rightly skeptical of what I say initially, and who lack enough time to read the experimental work that I cite in my papers and thereby satisfy themselves that I may have a point) don't know the relevant facts.

This is not so bad as it might be, because most gerontologists realise that they know a lot less about my proposed technologies than they might, and they therefore refrain from ridiculing me -- and indeed offer me considerable (albeit often only tacit) support. Only a few of them reason that because they know more than I about how to run a gel (since I lack experimental training) they therefore know more than I about how difficult things are that have not yet been done, even though I have researched the relevant literature and discussed the topics extensively with the relevant scientists and they have not. Luckily, most of those colleagues also "play fair" -- they say what they think of my chances of success, but at least they say it openly, in print. The only colleagues I resent are the very few who ridicule me anonymously but refuse to engage me in proper debate.

It is also worth stressing that a modicum of overoptimism is a good thing in science, and indeed in technology in general. Confidence in success is a virtual prerequisite for putting maximum effort into a venture, and if we never attempted things unless our actual chance of success was high our technology would progress a lot more slowly.

Aubrey de Grey

[bioconservative]

ag24:

> 'Passive' potential implies that an entity and its future developmental
> trajectory is 'possible' rather than 'probable'.

and you were referring to zygotes, including IVF ones, under "probable". But we digress -- let's stick to the substantive issues.

No, no. I understand what you're saying in this regard. Obviously, excess zygotes left over from IVF were left over precisely because they were judged to have less of a chance of coming to term (and also having more of a change of having abnormalities). Again, I am presenting potentiality, along with my personal position, so things may get somewhat confusing. What I plan to do is designate an entire post to the topic of 'potentiality', and then, after that point, simply leave it out there as a 'cost' worthy of ethical consideration.

Give me some time to look at your links.

[ag24]

> Give me some time to look at your links.

Warning: time.htm and AdGpubs.htm are up to date, but some of my pages (especially
the one about reasons why life extension is a bad idea) will be radically updated within
the next 24 hours. I will post something here when these updates are live.

Aubrey de Grey

[Lazarus Long]

Bioconservative says:

QUOTE
LL:
Does being an element of procreation impart an additional importance to this tissue over say your heart, lungs, eyes, or neural system?


This is the wrong question to ask. The question which should be asked is: Where does one human life end and another human life begin?

Actually what you offer is not only *the* wrong question to ask; they both are.

They’re two very different questions. It is rationally arguable that birth is not dependent on death. The reverse BTW is false, as death is obviously logically dependent on there having been a birth. However the concern here really directly depends on individual interest.

That is unless you’re making reference to birth being the leading cause of death )

The question you linked above on what defines the *birth and death* of *being* is really two separate ones, referring to two separate individual interests that are only tenuously held together by a *common standard* of *sentience.*

Better perhaps ask then: when does one person or social interest have the right to determine when life begins for others?

Or when is it right to deny life or take it involuntarily?

The zygote under the strongest argument you suggest is nothing more than “potential,” and you have granted a priori that sentience is not present when these *cells* are being diverted into staying only the most basic tissues by SCNT. Has such a sufficient sentient interest developed yet that the *presence* not *potential* sentient self interest can be demonstrated as deserving the State's Third Party interest to intervene?

Or even who should be the final arbiter on whether a woman is to carry that life you are jumping in to protect to term? And when her body is not only just her own but the State’s as well to force this, or any potential life, that a hypothetical *third party* cares for, to term?

I think that “bright line” has less to do with a somewhat arbitrary *legal* definition of when life begins and has much more to do with biology but also it has to do with defining valid criteria for what defines *who we are.*

It may have a little to do with *potentiality* but only by *degrees* and that is the relativism I suspect, which makes everyone uncomfortable as the *degree* is certainly a majority interest.

Ironically, it is treating human life like a *capital investment*, which results precisely in the *commoditization* that you claim to fear. The issues we face together aren't really about the evils of tech, or the principles per se of *value* we socially set for human *self-worth*; it is the objectification of our *being*.

Who and how will we define the rights of a *self’s’* worth and its *existence* let alone a cellular cluster's?

The question which should be asked is why each and every cell of the developing embryo do not themselves become embryos?

There are a myriad of reasons, however the objective of this ethical analysis IMHO shouldn’t be to bring them all to term. This question does go to the core of *common belief* now doesn't it.

Clearly there are epigenetic factors, up to and including intercellular communication, which allow for the compensatory repair and also would necessarily point to the emerging biological pattern of a distinct individual.

Actually the question that should be asked IMHO is not why a cell develops the way it does (except of course as biological study) but how are we going to best favor that growth; whether biologically, socially, or both,

There do exist legitimate concerns for society but isn’t there also concern based on unfounded fears and hysteria?

Don’t you really think it is really more about the perception of *ghoulishness* that forms the cultural divide between Transhumanists of all persuasions and the rest of society?

BTW, Transhumanists come in all flavors, just like all other social groupings.

The real issue is consciousness."  So why can't you take your newborn baby to the vet and have it put to sleep as you would your dog?

Then why can't Terri Chialvo be allowed to end her and her family’s misery?

Do you credit her as having, or even capable of *being conscious* of herself?

Why does the State of Florida have an *intervening interest* in that case not dependent on sentience?

Why is the example you offer any more complex than simply enforcing the murder statute for euthanizing a healthy child but able to leave these more complex, sensitive, and difficult choices to the individual parties directly involved. It appears that you feel the State can better forge a path through this unknown social and technocratic jungle than the society of individuals.

Interesting, that is downright Democrat of you.

Perhaps you think it takes a village to raise a child too?

Your questions and responses seem to be skirting around with consciousness (sentience). Where is it and what is its potential to exist; both with and without a biologically based neural net, our brain and nervous system? You really can’t have it both ways you know. You will have to find a line and it probably won’t be so close to conception as to make any of the Right Wing comfortable.

Bioconservative:

Perhaps I should think of a different term to express the position I am trying to communicate. By 'intrinsic worth' I mean to convey the idea that an embryo may not be a fully fledged human being, but it is not a skin cell either. It is something 'in between'. Basically, what I am advocating is a partial acceptance of the 'potentiality' argument. In other words, 'potentiality' is something which needs to be seriously taken into consideration but, in the final analysis, it is an argument based in meta-physics. Either you buy into it or you don't.

Frankly this assertion: “what I am advocating is a partial acceptance of the 'potentiality' argument.” sounds more like Zeno’s Paradox rather than Solomon’s choice. I really don't think you will ever reach a *conclusive* and satisfactory answer as the question logically demands slicing the line ever smaller forever, always just going half the distance, always stuck before reaching a rational and satisfactory goal.

Killing a (healthy) new born child is human sacrifice and simple murder (infanticide) if it is not for mitigating the combined family suffering of a brain dead or severely deformed infant (euthanasia). Or is somehow the compelling interest of "society" like an impoverished mother trying to figure out how to keep a whole family alive through hard times (Natural Selection).

This last notion is not necessarily morally or ethically correct but reflects the realities of Hard Pragmatism derived of Darwinism and the animal humans' survival demands dependent on the lifeboat tactics of Environmental Economics (or utilitarianism), it is natural after all. )

One dies to keep all from dying. But really that too can be seen as just another of the straw man arguments. We should not be discussing these extremist behaviors with any sense that they will easily become common, or the norm. The implied aberrant behaviors you suggest all fall well within the already existing body of laws, except for specifically that elusive *Bright Line* defining just what a human being is.

That is the difficulty here but I suspect it will continue to be an issue even after birth, if not for all our lives.

That is an aspect of Social Capitalism (consumerism) and where you will find the best lubricant for that slippery slope if not the greatest force driving us to the precipice. That is the true source of the *objectification* process you claim to abhor and would shift the blame from, not technology.

Ah, medical ethics. [glasses] Ethically speaking, what is of more importance, the principle of the individual or the 'aggregate good' of the State? I think we know which side the Hitlers and the Stalins of the world would choose.

And the Bush choice favors individual rights?

Hardly

Again the *compelling interest argument* is mostly held by those living closest to the concern. Terri sadly is a body with no individually desirable quality of life and in order to serve the same motives you espouse for the zygote it seems you are willing to continue to punish, if not torture the innocent by forcing her to live.

Oh I do realize that you personally have not made the Terri Chialvo case here but Gov. Jebb Bush has ordered his Attorney General to use State funds to make the case. I would think you might consider this perspective then germane to the debate possibly since you raise the issue of “potential” and “intrinsic worth” and make a case centrally dependent on “sentience.”

At least the positions are consistent.

The issue of *quality* of life should be commensurate with how we define it.

Particularly when the State claims the right and responsibility to intervene as protector and essentially *determiner* for that worth so perhaps it can start taxing the individual as the *commodity* you say you object to, along with *value added tax* of the flesh, blood and tears of parents.

The “family” and the “definition of it”, is again going to end up at the core of the debate as the real issues are about the laws of unintended consequences and bad law over this area’s POTENTIAL for advance that frankly promises to be far worse than no law at all.

All this civilized talk of seven or fourteen days in many respects is moot. The real concern over that slippery slope we are already going down on a daily basis is most often found in family court, or school, or the police station.

We are already in social free-fall down the slope leading away from tradition and we have been for some time but the fault isn’t technology’s, and certainly not medical and biotechnology.

If there is fault perhaps it lies with societal fears and what society values. It stems directly from the consequences of values we have now and have competed over, defended or imposed for thousands of years but it isn’t by the tools of medicine that we humans are doing the majority of killing. So please demonstrate why there is a compelling interest to intervene?

The “slippery slope” is not accelerating downhill because of the lives we can or shouldn’t create. To be worried about the *potential* ones without a mind, that have no mother, no ability to really survive outside the womb at the expense of the living, no awareness of body or being, should at the very least be the ultimate decision of those making this commitment and sacrifice, not the state.

So it is no small irony that this repressive trend is really caused by those claiming to want to diminish central authority, defending rather than diminishing Individual Liberty. Why not trust to individual motives here?

Yes *they* are helpless but who are they, do they have a sense of self?

Or have we just slipped pronouns between referring to zygotes to human beings and back again?

Generally when you have mentioned "potential" or "intrinsic worth" with respect to formative cellular structure you are adopting a standard dependent on when the mind forms. It certainly isn't there at one week or two.

So when IS it there?

Not when it is simply *possible* that much is certain.

And isn’t it the PRESENCE of sentience (cognizance), not the *least potential* for it that is the critical gold standard at the very center of the bright line all here seek?

These are serious questions but all dependent on how we define the *mind* and to what extent its existence is totally dependent on a complex neural net understood as the brain.

So what part is in the DNA and does some property of mind exist a priori for the zygote or even during the first trimester?

Edited by Lazarus Long, 13 January 2005 - 04:49 PM.

[Lazarus Long]

Reason:
QUOTE (Lazarus Long)
That which can be done will be done.


That's demonstrably untrue over any finite time span or set of potential actors. There are many, many things we as a species could have done over the past century but have not for one reason or another - and show no signs of doing in the near future.

I wasn't suggesting it is true Reason. I was alluding to its central importance to the existential threat side of Bioconservative's argument.

It isn't my premise. I was rhetorically anticipating his, it is consistent with the *worst case scenario* arguments Bio-C apparently is leading to.

[bioconservative]

armha

As I understand it, therapuetic cloning doesn't neccessarily have to come from a viable embryo or anything or the sort, so I think it's completely a non-issue about wiether it costs 'human dignity' or not.

Then you do not understand 'it' correctly. As it stands, therapeutic cloning would require the intentional destruciton of human embryos.

I can't help but feel there is some kind of mixup in your priorities. It seems you think potential human life is more or as valuable than established/existing human life. I think human life begins when we learn languages and start to label and model the world around us.

Ha. I read that link somewhere on this site also. You are taking that idea from Daniel C. Dennett, are you not? Didn't he say that this was something he believed, but could not prove? [tung]

I don't think inalienable human rights work opposite the arrow of time. There is a possible future where every 'passive' gamete becomes an 'active' zygote. Every time a child is created, millions of potentially 'active' gametes' future is denied. In the spectrum of quantum possibility, trying to take responsibility to ensure everything that can be has a chance at life is utter madness.

Huh? [huh] I think you are the one who is working opposite the 'arrow of time'. I'm going to try to give a fair presentation of potentiality when time permit so I won't have to go over the same line of reasoning again and again.

I should hope immortals destablize all culture. Delusions of grandeur about our own mythical 'transcendence' aside, almost all of mainstream culture is built up around death, dualism, religious beliefs about law and punishment, the illusion of free will.

And this is why 'mainstream culture' will never turn to Transhumanist types for ethical guidance. Deep down inside most Transhumanist do want to destablize society. There's just so much that's wrong with society, right? The stupid ignorant masses need to be told what's good for them, right? So to hell with the consequences, let's just blow every thing up (metaphorically) and let the pieces fall where they may. After all, things can't get much worse then they are now?

Guess again folks. Things can get much, much worse.

[Lazarus Long]

Bioconservative:
QUOTE
And this is why 'mainstream culture' will never turn to Transhumanist types for ethical guidance. Deep down inside most Transhumanist do want to destablize society. There's just so much that's wrong with society, right? The stupid ignorant masses need to be told what's good for them, right? So to hell with the consequences, let's just blow every thing up (metaphorically) and let the pieces fall where they may. After all, things can't get much worse then they are now?

Guess again folks. Things can get much, much worse.

I already addressed what I felt was the false premise in the above argument that you present as a strawman Bio-C but we are in agreement that things can get much worse we simply disagree as to whose fault it is, how, and why it will happen.

We may also disagree on the necessity for things to get worse.

[ag24]

OK, my site is fully updated. I rushed it a bit for our new friend, so readers are welcome to mail me with bug reports. Oh, and feedback on the text is OK too....

Aubrey de Grey

[Mind]

Guess again folks. Things can get much, much worse.

This has been said over and over and over again in many many different forms throughout all of human history. Someone is always resisting change, because "some calamity may befall us". I think warnings should be a guide into the future, not a brake on progress.

[reason]

"Worth as an intelligence in my view is a function of level of cognitive capabilities plus an associated store of memory resulting from the action of past cognitive capabilities; an animal and a very young human are not significantly different in this respect. Skin flakes and zygotes are not significantly different from one another in this respect. Grass and sand are not significantly different from one another in this respect."

BINGO.  Thank you for providing a segue to the point I wanted to make.  Transhumanists (or do you guys prefer a different terms to refer to 'bio-radicals'?) always seem to get all agitated when they hear the argument for potentiality.  "Oh, that's just spiritual mumbojumbo.  The real issue is consciousness."  [huh] So why can't you take your newborn baby to the vet and have it put to sleep as you would your dog?  Why not, they both possess roughly the same level of cognition.  What separates the two?? 

"Well," you respond, "the infant has the potential to become a fully developed adult human."

Now who's arguing for potentialty?

Words in my mouth, not put there by me. That people "can't" (by which I assume you either mean are prevented through social compact backed by force, or don't want to) treat newborn babies the way they treat dogs is that they don't suscribe the way of looking at things I outline above. I would argue that this is because people are essentially irrational about a great many things ... from my point of view of course. Our minds are fragile, noble constructs built atop a foundation of jealous ape.

Potentiality has the backing of the masses, I believe, because of the hardwiring of economic valuation in our minds. We can't fail to make that judgement and it blurs other considerations. Many votes is not and should not be considered justification for forcing other people to go along with your majority, of course. Volume does not make right.

Beyond that, there are people who treat dogs badly and there are people who treat babies badly. Personally, I think people fail to value animals highly enough; the dog-abusers get off far too lightly and most people don't even care about the vast suffering in other species.

Well, you represent the Utilitarian position quite effectively. And to some extent, this is where many of our differences lie. Is increasing the 'aggregate good' the ultimate objective of ethics? Or are there certain ethical standards which can not be measured by a Utilitarian cost/benefit analysis? Is it ethically acceptable to administer risky experimental treatments to children in the hope that its efficacy will be established and thousands of children's lives saved? Ah, medical ethics.  Ethically speaking, what is of more importance, the principle of the individual or the 'aggregate good' of the State? I think we know which side the Hitlers and the Stalins of the world would choose.

My position is not strictly utilitarian; I'm a hedonist in the Hedonistic Imperative sense (see http://www.hedweb.org ). My vote - my voice, my ability to persuade - is for paradise engineering and the least possible suffering on the way there. I should note that none of my opinions, unlike those of many people in these sorts of discussion, mean that I advocate the initiation of coercion or force or the existence of the state. I am, at root, a minarchist/ anarcho-capitalist libertarian, albeit pragmatic about living in this present rather undesirable society.

http://www.fightagin...ives/000159.php

There is no thing as "The State" in the sense of an individual entity that can have or experience characteristics - there are just people chosing to do things to other people.

By 'cell' I assume you mean 'zygote'. If so, then arguing from a position of potentiality I would say yes. The original zygote has the latent potential to become a fully function adult human being. By destroying an embryo you are destroying a potential future human life.

Except you are not. Those very materials (atoms if you like) will at some future point in time be used as components for the construction of an intelligence no matter what you do with them now. What you do by destroying an embryo is change the economic value of the materials (upwards or downwards) and that's all. You might as well be complaining about melting sand on the beach as an action that destroys potential...

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme
reason@longevitymeme.org
http://www.longevitymeme.org

[reason]

OK, my site is fully updated.  I rushed it a bit for our new friend, so readers are welcome to mail me with bug reports.  Oh, and feedback on the text is OK too....

I'm planning to put on the editing gloves later. I'll e-mail you suggested revisions - mostly grammar and sentence structure by the looks of it.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme
reason@longevitymeme.org
http://www.longevitymeme.org

[armrha]

You're right, I don't entirely understand the biological parts of the issue. I'll leave the biological aspects to the far more qualified in the discussion until I get more education on it.

Ha.  I read that link somewhere on this site also.  You are taking that idea from Daniel C. Dennett, are you not?  Didn't he say that this was something he believed, but could not prove?

Actually, the concept is in his book Consciousness Explained. But it's something I've believed ever since I wasn't able to remember anything that happened before I had a language.

I'm sorry if my paragraph on pontentiality is unclear, but I was trying to express that the distinction between potential life and intelligent life is somewhat arbitrary to me. The only value on potential life I place is the initial life; If it was a question of removing all potential from humans for reproduction, then that would be a crime since it would effectively be xenocide, if aging killed us all later. Purposefully destroying an ecosystem of a planet in order to make sure no life ever is formed is another example of potential life destruction I would hold as a crime. Until a life is a life, how can it have any individual rights? Why an arbitrary selection about the probability of something becoming a living thing at 99%? I wouldn't say any embryos are 99% likely to turn into a child without any further interaction and support. I look forward to your explanation of this potentiality case, maybe it will be enlightening.

And this is why 'mainstream culture' will never turn to Transhumanist types for ethical guidance.  Deep down inside most Transhumanist do want to destablize society.  There's just so much that's wrong with society, right?  The stupid ignorant masses need to be told what's good for them, right?  So to hell with the consequences, let's just blow every thing up (metaphorically) and let the pieces fall where they may.  After all, things can't get much worse then they are now?

Guess again folks.  Things can get much, much worse. : )

I would love to see modern culture change for the better. I do think there are a lot of things wrong with today's world. I feel like many people have their priorities messed up. Aging kills over a hundred thousand a day, while terrorists kill far less then that per day, but which problem gets more funding? It seems ridiculous to me. It's not that I don't expect the consequences to be purely good, it's just I don't think there's any stopping it. You can slam on the brakes of progress as much as you want, but I don't feel like a cultural viewpoint of trying to keep things from changing is going to improve the quality of life for much of anyone. What if that kind of attitude had prevailed 600 years ago? or 2000? I may not realize it, but I'd be robbed of a far higher quality of life. Every generation seems to at some point think they've got things figured out and the Experts all agree that the next stage of the human race is probably impossible or immoral.

On a more selfish note, to me, the ends justify the means. I most certainly want to live as long as I possibly can. There is almost nothing that I would be willing to sacrifice my life for. I wouldn't count myself as a representative of the Transhumanist community, as my beliefs are on the far radical, extremist side of only a handful of the tenets of Transhumanism. I doubt anyone would look at me as an iconic example of a typical transhumanist. So, I wouldn't make any judgements about transhumanist philosphy, or the opinions of members of this institute, based on me.

I do want to understand the bioconservative position though. I still don't feel like I understand where you are coming from or why. It makes it hard to keep an open mind if you don't understand the justifications for your beliefs. It can't possibly be a wish to hold back progress, as it feels like. What directions do you think our technology should expand, if not to improve the quality of our life?

Edited by armrha, 12 January 2005 - 10:58 PM.

[JMorgan]

(Armha)  I should hope immortals destablize all culture...

(bioconservative)  And this is why 'mainstream culture' will never turn to Transhumanist types for ethical guidance.  Deep down inside most Transhumanist do want to destablize society.  There's just so much that's wrong with society, right?  The stupid ignorant masses need to be told what's good for them, right?  So to hell with the consequences, let's just blow every thing up (metaphorically) and let the pieces fall where they may.  After all, things can't get much worse then they are now?

Not all members here share the same views. But I think most want to see society elevated, not torn down.

However, I do understand where you're coming from. This is the feeling many fellow conservatives are expressing across the country that the liberal 'elite' don't understand middle America. Now I know I'm asking alot, but I really hope politics doesn't get in the way of scientific progress. (I'd actually like to see more conservatives involved in the field of radical life extension. Our discussions here are a start.)

And who better to debate bioconservative than Aubrey de Grey? [thumb]

(I must admit, I am rather lost as well, but this is one of the most interesting discussions I've seen in a long time.)

[kurt9]

Good debate.

Three points I will add.

First, much of "bioconservative's" position is based on the notion that once an egg is fertilized, it is a human being and, therefore, should have the same rights as you and I. If we accept this for purposes of argument, then we should strive to eliminate accidental and intentional death of these "people". The reality is that in natural pregnancy, 60-80% of these fertilized eggs fail to implant and end up being flushed out of the body to die. This means that natural pregancy is the bigging cause of death for new formed humans and, therefor, should be outlawed. Far more embryos are fertilized and end up dying (by failing to implant in the uterus) than as a result of abortion or therapeutic cloning.

If bioconservative wants to back up his position about protecting embryos, he or she should first work to eliminate natural pregancy. Then we can talk about abortion and therapeutic cloning.

Ronald Bailey has an excellent article on the Reason Magazine website, called "Is heaven chiefly populated by embryos?", which discusses this very issue.

I think this point effectively demolishes "bioconservative's" position.

The second point is about society making us into commodities. I've news for you: you've always been a commodity. So have I and everyone else you know. You've been a commodity you whole entire life.

What do you think you are when you apply for a job or go to a job interview? How about when you make a sales visit to a customer? And (I like this one) when you step into a dance club or a singles bar? Believe me, you're as much of a commodity as you can be in any of these situation.

All tranhumanism is about is getting access to the tools so that you can set your own price.

My third point is about aging. Aging is a disease, nothing less and nothing more. Curing aging is no different than curing any other disease such as cancer or AIDS. Morally, there is no difference between curing any of these. Its just that way more people die of aging than of either cancer or aging. If you believe in the value of human life, you should want to cure the disease state that kills the largest number of people first. Hense, the moral imperative should be to cure aging first, cancer second, AIDS third.

Curing aging is not a "transhumanist" thing either and i don't consider it such. It is simply an extension of the same human values system that believed in eliminating smallpox and polio. Aging is a disease. Therefor it should be cured. There is nothing "transhumanist" about this value statement. It is simple a statement affirming the value of human life.

[kurt9]

Another agument in favor of therapeutic cloning is that human life is defined as the presence of a consciousness. Consciousness, in turn, requires the extistance of a nuerological system. Embryos do not have a neurological system until around 6 weeks of development. Any embryo less than 6 weeks old in development does not possess a consciousness and, therefor, cannot be considered a human being.

BTW, this is the standard of human life that is likely to be accepted in the Asian countries and Europe. It is logical, it is concise, and it allows for the protection of human life while, at the same time, allows for biomedical progress and contraception use. It is a win-win situation.

[JMorgan]

First, much of "bioconservative's" position is based on the notion that once an egg is fertilized, it is a human being and, therefore, should have the same rights as you and I. If we accept this for purposes of argument, then we should strive to eliminate accidental and intentional death of these "people". The reality is that in natural pregnancy, 60-80% of these fertilized eggs fail to implant and end up being flushed out of the body to die. This means that natural pregancy is the bigging cause of death for new formed humans and, therefor, should be outlawed. Far more embryos are fertilized and end up dying (by failing to implant in the uterus) than as a result of abortion or therapeutic cloning.

If I can play devil's advocate for a moment:

In defense of bioconservative, the debate regarding when an embryo or fetus becomes human is ongoing. Nearly half of the people in the US believe that 'life' begins at conception, or at some other point during the fetal stage. Ignoring this opinion will only cause more resistance from anyone who is conservative on this issue.

While clearly there is little we can do regarding the embryos that fail naturally, that is hardly a reason to ignore the ethical concerns in voluntarily destroying embryos, whatever the purpose. This issue will not be solved easily, if ever.

It's amazing to me that in this country, we argue over the ethics of the destruction of an embryo less than a week old, while maintaining the legality of abortion as late as nine months! (Partial-birth abortion, for example.) In Europe the concept of abortion isn't even an issue. It's just done -- but done early! I don't think it's legal there to abort late in the pregnancy. Or am I mistaken?

Aging is a disease, nothing less and nothing more.

I completely agree with you. But remember, we still need to convince the vast majority of people that this is true.

[Kalepha]

BJKlein Immortality can never be a goal, but a way of life.

Perhaps some would like to think of it as a goal, so that it’s not forever primary on one’s agenda. At one time, avoiding getting rabies could have been considered a way of life, yet today it would be a virtually needless preoccupation. At some time, death could fall into the same category.

[Lazarus Long]

Malchiah:
It's amazing to me that in this country, we argue over the ethics of the destruction of an embryo less than a week old, while maintaining the legality of abortion as late as nine months! (Partial-birth abortion, for example.) In Europe the concept of abortion isn't even an issue. It's just done -- but done early! I don't think it's legal there to abort late in the pregnancy. Or am I mistaken?

Your not mistaken as to the absurdity but you are missing the motives. This is like a football game where both sides are trying to rearrange the playing field by moving goal posts rather than fighting it out on the field nose to nose and down for down. I believe there is an old Monty Python skit about that.

That is at the core of the Rights' dilemma too frankly. It is no small irony that they are trying to move the goal post to a time too early. I made the same argument to the Left in reverse when I warned they were opening a can of worms with the "Dilation and Extraction (PBA) Procedure" fight but that was also the result of the Right trying to move the goal by introducing legislation for a procedure that was very rarely used and only at the serious discretion of a physician that felt a woman's life was threatened.

That process can be understood IMO as a second not properly addressed, corollary aspect of this debate and it revolves around defining the extent and limits of professionalism, who shall ultimately be responsible for professional decision making and what liability is attached to making those decisions?

Since you raise the European model it should be noted, I am under the impression that they have precious little legislation (compared to us) on these issues and what they do have tends to vary greatly country to country (Italy ironically having some of the most liberal abortion law) but what they all seem to concur on is that THIS IS FOREMOST THE PROVINCE OF MEDICAL DECISION AND THE FAMILY, NOT THE STATE!

It is the State, as an impartial *Third Party*, which should be under obligation to show cause as to why there exists a necessity to second guess the physician and family. That issue is not only germane to this debate IMHO but to the steady degeneration of medical service in America caused by intrusive government and consumerism.

It is no small irony that the Right is trying to introduce legislation to control what they suspect and fear but do not understand or know. They are attempting to micromanage medical and bio-tech advance with less of a compelling interest than an HMO and far less competence.

It is this air of irony shedding a Bright Light of true Kafkaesque absurdity on this discussion. It would make us all laugh if it wasn't serious enough an issue to make us all cry first.

[bioconservative]

Lazarus Long

However the concern here really directly depends on individual interest.

I absolutely agree with you Mr. Sills. Suddenly I am reminded of a famous quotation that carries with it so much implicit meaning. “All for one and one for all.”

The question you linked above on what defines the *birth and death* of a *being* is a separate one only held together by the common standard of *sentience.* 

The problem rests in the extreme difficulty of defining exactly when sentience begins and what it is. Who knows, maybe Armha’s dialog regarding Dennett’s speculation that language brings about the formation of identity is correct. Maybe it is not. Dennett himself said that such a belief was not yet provable.

And that is the problem with all biological distinctions, both in terms of gross morphology as well as the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness to arise – they are all human constructs. From a scientific perspective there is no ‘defining point’ that designates the beginning of human consciousness.

By trying to define the ‘nervous system’ as the onset of consciousness you are doing exactly what you accuse the conservative camp of doing – building artificial constructs, irrelevant abstractions, that come about from our all too human imagination. Once a human life begins, placing its different developmental stages into ontological categories is impossible.

In light of the difficulties society has had (and will continue to have) with such distinction, I think the application of the Precautionary Principle is a reasonable approach in handling these ethical difficulties. It is quite possible, that in hundred years we will have the technical means to verify Dennett’s hypothesis, at which point it would then be appropriate to make further ethical distinctions. Until that time however, it is probably in the best interests of society to respect the moral status of embryos and not allow them to be manufactured (and thus commoditized).

Better perhaps ask then: when does one person or social interest have the right to determine when life begins for others?

Or when is it right to deny life or take it involuntarily?

For the record I am against capital punishment.

I see, Lazarus Long, that you are quite adamant in appealing to the rights of the individual. Perhaps you have formulated this as your best strategy for success. I also side with the rights of the individual. Unlike many of my colleagues, I favor the reproductive rights of women, because, in such cases as abortion, the rights between two separate entities must be taken into consideration – one actual and one potential. But with therapeutic cloning, the choice is not between one individual and another (at least not directly – and I will get more into this because I understand many of you here will jump on top of me with the therapeutic imperative) is not present. The choice one is left with in this instance is between ‘potential’ individuals and the development of a new, highly speculative technology; between human life and human meat markets (not metaphorically).

Okay, the therapeutic imperative….. On one hand you have ‘potential’ human life. On the other you have a highly speculative, ethically questionable technology whose objectives could possibly be accomplished by other means.

Heck, the whole purpose of SCNT is to solve the immunorejection problem. But scientists readily admit that even with SCNT the immunorejection problem may not be solved. Why? Because the mtDNA (along with other epigenetic factors) are not cloned, but the vestigial product of the original donor cells.

So here we are, dedicating all of this time and effort, engaging in all of this moral ‘hand ringing’ on a highly speculative (as of yet nonexistent technology) when instead we could just be placing more funding and emphasis on alternative immunorejection treatments which, I might add, have been showing a GREAT deal of promise in developing into viable treatments. Where is our sense of priorities here people?

In terms of a present day ethical valuation I see therapeutic cloning as a highly dubious enterprise.

The zygote under the strongest argument you suggest is nothing more than “potential,” and you have granted a priori that sentience is not present when these *cells* are being diverted into staying only the most basic tissues by SCNT. Has such a sufficient sentient interest developed yet that the *presence* not *potential* sentient self interest can be demonstrated as deserving the State's Third Party interest to intervene?

I think I have made my position clear with my above comments. ‘Potential’ human life is not of the same value as actual human life, but it does merit being a factor in society’s ethical decision making process!

In light of the fact that there are alterative approaches to arriving at therapeutic treatments, I would recommend a moratorium on the pursuit of therapeutic cloning technologies. For the record, Mr. Sills, it is not necessary for me to prove sentience of the embryo in order to suggest that an alterative research avenue be taken.

Or even who should be the final arbiter on whether a woman is to carry that life you are jumping in to protect to term? And when her body is not only just her own but the State’s as well to force this, or any potential life, that a hypothetical *third party* cares for, to term?

Again, perhaps I confused the issue by putting forth the concept of potentiality (which I have still to give a fair presentation of), but my personal position, I believe, is much more nuanced in considering the real costs and benefits of this issue. [See above] Again, it may surprise you to realize that I am personally pro-choice.

Who and how will we define the rights of a *self’s’* worth and its *existence* let alone a cellular cluster's?

Together.

There do exist legitimate concerns for society but isn’t there also concern based on unfounded fears and hysteria?

Please see my next post.

Your questions and responses seem to be skirting around with consciousness (sentience). Where is it and what is its potential to exist; both with and without a biologically based neural net, our brain and nervous system?

It is not my obligation to establish the alpha and omega Mr. Sills. After all, I am not the one proposing ethically questionable technological advances.

Frankly this assertion: “what I am advocating is a partial acceptance of the 'potentiality' argument.” sounds more like Zeno’s Paradox rather than Solomon’s choice. I really don't think you will ever reach a *conclusive* and satisfactory answer as the question logically demands slicing the line ever smaller forever, always just going half the distance, always stuck before reaching a rational and satisfactory goal.

It makes perfect sense in light of my above comments.

And the Bush choice favors individual rights?

Hey now. My mother always said – no politics and no religion at the dinner table. )

Edited by bioconservative, 13 January 2005 - 11:45 PM.

[bioconservative]

Just to let everyone know, there are just too many questions for me to keep track of every single one that has been asked. Elrond, Sonia, ag24, Lazarus Long – I see your posts and will try to get to all of them as time permits.

First though, instead of just falling back onto defense, I would like to dispute a few additional claims made by the Transhuman establishment (which are related to therapeutic cloning technologies because of their implications on extending the maximal life span and the resulting impact on ‘social stability’):

N Bostrom, referring to Fukuyama’s claims for a human essence:

The concept of such a “human essence” is, of  course, deeply problematic. Evolutionary biologists note that the human gene pool is in constant flux and talk of our genes as giving rise to an “extended phenotype” that includes not only our bodies but also our artifacts and institutions. Ethologists have over the past couple of decades revealed just how similar we are to our great primate relatives. A thick concept of human essence has arguably become an anachronism.

This whole quote is pure obfuscation on Bostrom’s part. Indeed, the human gene pool may be in constant flux, but only within a range, an equilibrium. What is a Darwinian population other than a variation around a mean? There most definitely is the distinct ontological/biological category of ‘species’ and it consists of reproductively isolated populations possessing relatively stable phenotypic/morphological form. A proper reading of Gould (and the paleontological record) would bring one to an understanding that populations do not evolve by ‘constant speedism’, but rather through sudden, abrupt bursts followed by sustained periods of equilibrium. The fact that is often over looked by armchair scientific philosophers is that there is not one, but two options for the trajectory of a species. They either evolve – or THEY DIE OFF.

Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favored by selection. The history of life on Earth, he wrote, refutes the claim that "it is better to be smart than to be stupid," at least judging by biological success: beetles and bacteria, for example, are vastly more successful than humans in terms of survival. He also made the rather somber observation that "the average life expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years."

We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if it receives a definite answer, that answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else.
Noam Chomsky

Bostrom:

The claim that only individuals who possess the human essence could have intrinsic value is mistaken. Only the most callous would deny that the welfare of some non-human animals matters at least to some degree. If a visitor from outer space arrived on our doorstep, and she had consciousness and moral agency just like we humans do, surely we would not deny her moral status or intrinsic value just because she lacked some undefined “human essence”. Similarly, if some persons were to modify their own biology in a way that alters whatever Fukuyama judges to be their “essence,” would we really want to deprive them of their moral standing and legal rights? Excluding people from the moral circle merely because they have a different “essence” from “the rest of us” is, of course, akin to excluding people on basis of their gender or the color of their skin.

I see this as an over simplification on Bostrom’s part. At least when I think of a ‘human essence’ I am not thinking of anything magical or mystical. I am thinking more about the balanced, normal variation that exists around the ‘abstract mean’ of the entire human global population. It is not an a priori fact that the arrival of an alien civilization would be all peaches and cream – particularly if such a species possessed capabilities far exceeding our own.

I guess it was inevitable that in discussing therapeutic cloning I would have to at least put forth my fears concerning extensions of the maximal human life span – because, after all, that is one of the unspoken objective of developing these advanced biotechnologies, is it not?

Increasing the human lifespan is, in itself, an augmentation of human capacities. The fitness and stamina of youth combined with the wisdom and knowledge of maturity. How would an up and coming generation stand a chance? It wouldn’t, and this is but one of many objections that can be made against human augmentation. Our human essence is our functional equilibrium as a society.

Bostrom:

Moral progress in the last two millennia has consisted largely in our gradually learning to overcome our tendency to make moral discriminations on such fundamentally irrelevant grounds. We should bear this hard-earned lesson in mind when we approach the prospect of technologically modified people. Liberal democracies speak to “human equality” not in the literal sense that all humans are equal in their various capacities, but that they are equal under the law. There is no reason why humans with altered or augmented capacities should not likewise be equal under the law, nor is there any ground for assuming that the existence of such people must undermine centuries of legal, political, and moral refinement.

Once again I disagree with the way Bostrom is presenting the facts. When he refers to ‘augmented humans’, he is in fact no longer referring to humans at all, but Demi-Gods . We are no longer talking about insignificant variation that has been within the human population for the past couple of thousand years. We are talking about an abrupt, possibly catastrophic, fissure of human existence.
I am sure many of you have watched the X-men movies. (Yes, I am going to use it as an example [lol] ) Remember how there was a conflict between the mutants and the rest of human civilization? Why, what was one of the main reason? Because the mutants, not because of their collective intent, but because of their individual capacities, posed a threat to the rest of human civilization. How can a society remain stable and functioning if one deranged lunatic can decapitate the federal government? Is humanity mature enough for the kind of dramatic advancement advocated by the Transhuman agenda, or will it pull itself apart at the seams?

All the conservative position is advocating is that society take things slowly, and with more caution. The soundness of such an approach is apparent, unless, of course, one allows one’s personal existential angst to cloud their better judgment.

Edited by bioconservative, 14 January 2005 - 11:04 AM.

[John Doe]

Bioconservative:

Your position seems to rely upon several weak claims that I doubt will receive much support here:

1. that a non-consequentialist or Kantian ethical system is correct
2. that the distinction between passive and active potential is morally relevant
3. that there is a human essence

About 1: Consequentialism has its own problems, of course. Personally, I would describe myself as a Hedonist in the sense of the Hedonistic Imperative, as Reason does. Where I differ from Reason and David Pearce (author of the Hedonistic Imperative), and perhaps agree more with you, is that I am not nearly so zealous about the importance of animal suffering or turning the universe into one big orgasm. In my opinion, our sense of ethics evolved to solve certain problems in the ancestral environment, and once we exit that environment--and enter a radically different posthuman future--our sense of ethics will not be right or wrong but will simply stop making sense. Turning the universe into one big orgasm is not right or wrong, it's just silly, funny, comical, pathetic, and (if we survive this century) inevitable. The particular culturally-independent ethical principles that evolved in us are not something to be slavishly obeyed outside of their ancestral context (or even in that context).

About 2: As Aubrey notes, this distinction is weak and won't support your argument (at least, not against the rigorous scrutiny of those here, who see thera cloning as a way to replace old body parts). I don't favor West/de Grey's 14 day bright line either. There is no bright line. I've never killed something that could talk, and for many practical reasons, I wouldn't do so. But I don't see the bright line between gametes, zygotes, fetuses, and babies. Philosophically, if I can kill the one, I can kill the other. Fortunately, I don't have any particular desire to kill anything with two sets of human chromosones, and so I avoid that particular problem...

About 3: The term essence invites the interpretation that you are talking about something metaphysical or magical. But your words reveal that you are talking about something else instead: a genetic equilibrium that one should maintain for pragmatic reasons. (Does your definition of "dignity" also have such a deflated, pragmatic aspect?) This raises a further question (which I would ask most bioconservatives): to what extent are you conflating pragmatic and moral concerns?

Sometimes you couch your position in language that suggests your concerns are only pragmatic ("All the conservative position is advocating is that society take things slowly, and with more caution.)" Other times, the prospect of a transhuman utopia itself--reached safely and without alarm--seems to upset you and other bioconservatives ("the pursuit of immortality is a necessarily dangerous path with many unanticipated consequences, not the least of which is the degradation of human dignity"). You seem worried both that we will fail (and destroy the world) and that we will succeed (becoming undignified superhumans). On the surface, this attack might seem to put the transhumanist in a double bind, but I think rather that it betrays a fundamental ambivalence and desperation on the part of bioconservatives. The moral concerns are the only ones that interest me. By considering a hypothetical transhuman utopia which is safely reached, we can explore these worries by themselves. Can you clarify your position with respect to both moral and pragmatic concerns?

Anyways, I hope these comments are of some interest to you (and that I have not misrepresented your position). I realize that you are quite busy.

[Lazarus Long]

I am sure many of you have watched the X-men movies. (Yes, I am going to use it as an example   ) Remember how there was a conflict between the mutants and the rest of human civilization? Why, what was one of the main reason? Because the mutants, not because of their collective intent, but because of their individual capacities, posed a threat to the rest of human civilization.

You do realize that this is almost a direct corollary to the same arguments made to sustain slavery, and when that failed to maintain a divided and segregated society based on racial fear and bigotry?

The argument from that time was that one black man getting educated could upset things for the whole group or that together there might exist potential social destabilization from the uprising of a subject people.

You do know about the Royal King of Spain's edict, in I believe 1506, making the proportions of Africans to Whites and Native Americans on plantations one based on *defensible numbers* to suppress the potential risk for uprising and slave revolt? Are you afraid that somehow all transhumanists are suddenly going to ban together and try and overthrow society?

You would have more luck herding cats.

It is no small irony that all of the worst appeals for slowing things down all sound very much like the argument against desegregation for the first half of the twentieth century. So we be jus shucking n' jiving misguided transhumanists needing a good word to put us back in our place or we become plain uppity *iggas tryin get 'bove our station in life?

You do realize that aside from self destructing there has not through all of history been one example of a society that did any good for itself by trying to suppress thoughts, tech, or a people?

There are no examples of successful inquisitions, book burnings, moratoriums, or prohibitions. They held back blood transfusion for three centuries and cost the Europeans centuries of advance. The Japanese banned the hand held gun and preserved feudalism into the modern era but had to race to catch up to the west because they had so crippled themselves by the middle of the 19th Century.

The Inquisition didn't hold back the Renaissance but it did make the Reformation far more violent than it probably needed to be.

The Taliban, the Iranian mullahs had to accept computers and the Chinese are still trying to play catch up on the internet, All these attempts historically have been examples of desperation, ignorance, fear and bigotry with results that were far worse than any perceived threats. Frankly this avenue of approach to technology is far more likely to cause the implosion of the Right than any other possible result and the crippling of our nation with both internecine strife and the loss of academic and industrial advantage we depend on.

There will be blowback and I guarantee that the Law of Unintended Consequences is more against the attempted moratorium than the leveling effect of the free marketplace of ideas in our society.

I should say that I do recognize from your general comments that you favor womens' and individual rights. I also heard you repeatedly espouse how you are *pro choice,* but on the issue of what is *possible negatively* versus what is *imaginable positively* you have offered little serious example of threats we are pursuing and have not engaged a discussion at all about how we could use this technology in a constructive and positive manner. Instead like the little Dutch Boy you want to stick a finger in the dike and hold back the flood.

By the way sir, I do not hide my name as it is found in my bio but I do go by the pen name comfortably as the use of screen names to maintain a sense of anonymity didn't even begin with Poor Richard.

I do believe Mr. Bioconservative that you have me at a disadvantage. )

[bioconservative]

Lazarus Long:

You do realize that this is almost a direct corollary to the same arguments made to sustain slavery, and when that failed to maintain a divided and segregated society based on racial fear and bigotry.

The argument from that time was that one black man getting educated could upset things for the whole group or that together there might exist potential social destabilization from the uprising of a subject people?

You do know about the Royal King of Spain's edict, in I believe 1506, making the proportions of Africans to Whites and Native Americans on plantations one based on *defensible numbers* to suppress the potential risk for uprising and slave revolt?

You are showing a complete lack of understanding for the position I developed in my last post. What I am contending is that NOTHING in human history is comparable to the kind of change we are debating when we consider the development of Transhuman augmentation.

Are you afraid that somehow all transhumanists are suddenly going to ban together and try and overthrow society?

Did you read my last post? Its not about the intent of a collective Posthuman community, it is about the capabalities of augmented individuals.

It is no small irony that all of the worst appeals for slowing things down all sound very much like the argument against desegregation for the first half of the twentieth century.  So we be jus shucking n' jiving misguided transhumanists needing a good word to put us back in our place or we become plain uppity *iggas tryin get 'bove our station in life?

How dare you sir. [":)] I resent the implications of this statement. To claim that the conservative agenda has racist underpinnings is beyond the pale. Perhaps you would like me to start comparing your eugenic aspirations to those of the past. [ang]

[ag24]

> Just to let everyone know, there are just too many questions for me to
> keep track of every single one that has been asked. Elrond, Sonia,
> ag24, Lazarus Long I see your posts and will try to get to all of them
> as time permits.
>
> First though, instead of just falling back onto defense ....

Apologies, bioconservative, for adding another post to your backlog, but I hope it will actually help this discussion to make more rapid progress. Though this forum includes contributors with a range of specialisations and indeed temperaments, I can tell you that it is rather uniformly open to new ideas when there is a sense of progress in clarifying positions. It is very largely for that reason that I have focused heavily on asking you specific questions about your position (the most important of which remain to be answered). With those issues clarified, many of the comments which you are finding overwhelmingly numerous will not be made in the first place.

In that spirit, here are a couple more questions.

> I favor the reproductive rights of women, because, in such cases as
> abortion, the rights between two separate entities must be taken into
> consideration -- one actual and one potential. But with therapeutic
> cloning, the choice is not between one individual and another (at least
> not directly -- and I will get more into this because I understand many
> of you here will jump on top of me with the therapeutic imperative) is
> not present. The choice one is left with in this instance is between
> "potential" individuals and the development of a new, highly
> speculative technology; between human life and human meat markets (not
> metaphorically).
>
> Okay, the therapeutic imperative..... On one hand you have "potential"
> human life. On the other you have a highly speculative, ethically
> questionable technology whose objectives could possibly be accomplished
> by other means.

You appear to be saying here that if SCNT were shown to work (in some other country for example), you would no longer oppose it, at least until such time as an alternative (ASC-based, for example) therapy was also shown to work. Is that indeed your position?

> scientists readily admit that even with SCNT the immunorejection
> problem may not be solved. Why? Because the mtDNA (along with other
> epigenetic factors) are not cloned, but the vestigial product of the
> original donor cells.

Re mtDNA: another advantage of my version of ANT, I should note. Re "other epigenetic factors": this is not an immunology issue as far as I am aware but a function issue (disruption of imprinting and such like). Epigenetic changes to DNA (such as methylation) do not alter the sequences of the proteins that that DNA expresses, only when and where those proteins are expressed; the immune system, on the other hand, responds to foreign protein sequences. Also, they quite clearly are cloned and have nothing to do with the oocyte (which I presume you meant when you said "donor cell" above, since that's the situation for the mtDNA in standard SCNT). If I have overlooked some aspect of epigenetics that might be relevant to the immune rejection problem, please identify it.

> All the conservative position is advocating is that society take things
> slowly, and with more caution.

I think a lot of the problems that we "technophiles" have with the conservative position is that we find that the above rings hollow. There is a deep suspicion that, consciously or not, those who say "stop and think!" concerning issues where a great deal of thinking has already occurred actually mean simply "stop!", and are using the "think!' part as a smokescreen to obscure the fact that they have no intention whatsoever of engaging in further thought themselves on the matter in question. You are clearly not an example of this, because if you were you would not have come to ImmInst -- but it may be useful to you in framing your arguments here to appreciate the likely reaction to this sort of statement, namely that if a particular decision should be made in the end then it should generally, and pretty obviously, be made as soon as possible.

> The soundness of such an approach is
> apparent, unless, of course, one allows one's personal existential
> angst to cloud their better judgment.

This is not the way to make progress in an honest debate, bioconservative, as you surely recognise. If you want progress you will take my advice at the start of this post and answer the several outstanding straight questions about your position with straight answers, rather than merely inviting more ill-tempered retorts.

Aubrey de Grey

[Lazarus Long]

Everything about the present is the sum total of the past. It is a fallacy to assert this:

What I am contending is that NOTHING in human history is comparable to the kind of change we are debating when we consider the development of Transhuman augmentation.

And don't be so quick to take offense please. I said the arguments made are the types of ones used to uphold those practices in the past. I am quite sure some of your best friends are transhumanists.

I happen to have coined the term Peter Pan syndrome to refer to what others call the Neverland syndrome for Immortalists, and I too happen to consider the debate over eugenics a critical one to engage rationally and openly because its past is rife with abuse. I just happen to easily call a spade a spade.

There is no need for offense, I wasn't saying you are racist, just perhaps afraid of what you don't understand. All those groups that used those same types of arguments before did so out of fear generally too.

Did you read my last post? Its not about the intent of a collective Posthuman community, it is about the capabalities of augmented individuals.

Education is the very earliest and most obvious form of self empowerment to provide as the counter example and if you didn't notice the same arguments were used to keep women *barefoot and pregnant* for thousands of years. In fact the laws against female literacy are a hallmark of feudalism and theocracy that the Taliban were fond of.

I think you underestimate the leveling effect of the competition of ideas and the natural selection process for the good ones over the bad. There will not likely ever be a single model transhumanist, or a single super powerful individual, far more likely is a Cambrian like explosion of diversity that will result in a myriad of balancing types of expression. Egomania aside, some can seek it, always have and always will but everyone who does will inevitably create their own competition.

No sir, I do not for a moment suggest that you are personally *racist*. But the position that the Right is staking out its agenda on in relation to Transhumanism is promoting a form of *Human Racism*. I do apologize for any offense taken as none was intended.

I also grant that the myriad of aspects that comprise the issues are so new to most people that they perhaps don't know enough history and then fail to see the irony of so many of the arguments being made.

It should come as no surprise then that the presence of these trends in a society like ours has triggered a somewhat visceral response, one that has resurrected the arcane and traditional arguments that have actually all been heard before.

And frankly have virtually always resulted in a lot of unnecessary suffering and the failure of the society that made them to maintain its vitality.

Edited by Lazarus Long, 14 January 2005 - 06:18 AM.

[jrhall]

Would it be possible to back up the debate a little?

(malciah)
In defense of bioconservative, the debate regarding when an embryo or fetus becomes human is ongoing. Nearly half of the people in the US believe that 'life' begins at conception, or at some other point during the fetal stage. Ignoring this opinion will only cause more resistance from anyone who is conservative on this issue.

I would like to add my support to malchiah’s observation and concern that many people believe that life begins at conception (or close to it). These people believe with all their heart and souls that destroying an embryo = killing a baby. You will never ever be able to shout them down, and I believe there will never be a philosophical or any other proof of when the embryo becomes human. (I am swayed by Agrippa’s 2nd trope, Sextus (PH I.164-77), “Anything submitted in support of a proposition must itself be supported and thus an infinite regress results.”) All bright lines drawn will be arbitrary to some degree. Some lines will just be intuitively more obvious to some people than others. As a good friend of mine commented today, “It’s only common sense; I have understood it since 5th grade sex-ed class, a new life begins when the egg and sperm join.”

You may argue that we cannot cave into bioconservatism, but that would undermine arguments against bioconservative’s slippery slope worry as creating a slippery slope underlies the fear of caving in. If bioconservative's concerns are acknowledge and addressed in good faith, it is not caving.

But time is of the essence, too many people are dying everyday. We all need to be rowing in at least approximately the same direction if we are going to solve sooner rather than later the tragedy of stroke, heat disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s or the body simply wearing out.

I believe that Dr. de Grey has some alternative approaches to SCNT that we should consider. One of these techniques may assure all, or at least most of us, that we are not killing any babies while in pursuit of the ethical and very practical goal of reducing the rate of death.

I would like to second Dr. de Gray’s request for bioconservative’s response to his ANT approach.

I would also like to explore the bioconservative’s valid concerns about the ethical, environmental, societal and other changes that will result from the further development of life-extending technologies. (But my wife is calling [:o] )

Jeff

[Lazarus Long]

Thanks Jeff I am glad that some are weighing to support Bioconservative I was concerned he was too outnumbered here and not going to get a full and fair hearing of his concerns.

You raise some issues that are important to address concerning the alternatives that Dr. de Grey offers but even those might not be available under a moratorium and I think that becomes the bright line dividing the two camps of this contest if that becomes the agenda rather than seeking technological alternatives.

Thanks for weighing in.

[eternaltraveler]

bioconservitive:

Increasing the human lifespan is, in itself, an augmentation of human capacities. The fitness and stamina of youth combined with the wisdom and knowledge of maturity. How would an up and coming generation stand a chance? It wouldn’t, and this is but one of many objections that can be made against human augmentation. Our human essence is our functional equilibrium as a society.

Please clarify. You seem to be stating here that life extension and human augmentation is wrong precisely because it would result in superior beings. Perhaps we should surgically lobotomize gifted people so they don't make everyone else feel bad about themselves. Actually we'll probably have to do it to most people just so below average people don't feel bad about themselves either. After all they don't stand a chance now.

I don't know if you ever knew your grandparents. I knew all of mine. Only one is left alive. Whenever I talk to him he tries to impart some small bit of his knowledge and wisdom he built up over 85 years. I listen. I do not for a moment believe that he wouldn't be doing exactly the same thing if he was just as healthy and fit as I am. When he and those like him go it will be a loss to all of us.

The fact that is often over looked by armchair scientific philosophers is that there is not one, but two options for the trajectory of a species. They either evolve – or THEY DIE OFF.

This is precisely what I'm worried about. The human race dying off before ever having a chance to give birth to something greater than it's self. This is one reason many of us are in a hurry. I know quite well that individuals such as yourself are worried that augmented super humans will be the cause of the human race's downfall. The only retort I have to that is that i view that fate as far superior to it being wiped out by an engineered plague, nuclear war, a random hammer blow from space, or worst of all because the human race stops pushing forward, stagnates, and in years uncountable simply fades away.