Why Transhumanism Is Unrealistic and Immoral
“Utopians often produce evil because their movement’s aspirations become paramount—that is, more important than avoiding acts ‘traditionally perceived as immoral.’ If enough people follow Istvan on the transhuman roller coaster, people could eventually get hurt.”
“I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it occurs.” – Woody Allen
In 2016, transhumanism proselytizer Zoltan Istvan ran for president promising to defeat death while touring the country in a bus redesigned to look like a coffin. It was a great gimmick that made him, perhaps, the most famous transhumanist in the world.
I know and like Istvan. I admire his indefatigable work ethic that has him writing hundreds of transhumanist-boosting columns and engaging in countless interviews (including by opponents like me). But his essay in Merion West “When We’re Overly Optimistic about the Pace of Life Extension Research” took a dark and disturbing turn. He warns that at the current pace of life-extending research, the transhumanist goal of living indefinitely will not be attained during his lifetime (based on a formula he concocted he calls, “the senescence inference”). In 2131, he moans, our expected lifespan will “only” be 165 years, and it will take “well over a millennium to attain Methuselah-like lifespans nearing 1,000 years.”
That won’t help Istvan! The prospect of dying so terrifies him that he would detach transhumanism from proper ethical imperatives. Writing that “morality is defined by the amount of time one has to live”—!!!—and insisting that “realistic transhumanists know only that the most extreme measures, acts, and diligence can have a chance to save those alive today”—he justifies “extreme utilitarian acts” as “philosophically justified”—“even those that are illegal or traditionally perceived as immoral, such as civil disobedience, stealing property, and even starting wars, so long as they seem reasonable and tangible measures actually to increase the speedy success of life extension goals.”
Such immortality über alles absolutism should be condemned. Roundly. Unfortunately, I have not seen any pushback from co-believers. Indeed, the two responses published in Merion West dealt merely with whether Istvan’s pessimism is warranted.
That does not cut it. It is time to get real about the impossible goals and fractured ethical justifications for transhumanism, if only to bank the passions that Istvan stokes.
Transhumanists are primarily (though not exclusively) atheists who think, as does Istvan, “that the belief in any religious afterlife is nonsense.” But religionists throughout history have testified to mystical experiences, sudden conversions, and what appear to be miracles. That is good enough for believers, for as the Christian Bible puts it, “Faith is the assurance of what is hoped for, the conviction of what is not seen.” In other words, traditional religion does not depend upon empirical proof.
Not so transhumanism. Since its guiding principle holds that the physical world is all that exists—and its overriding purpose is to offer hope of immortality to the irreligious—its predictions must be judged on the purely materialistic premise that indefinite life can indeed be attained through applied technology.
Our Bodies Are Not Meat Machines
Ignoring the impact of entropy, Istvan clearly thinks so. He asserts that “the human body is like a machine—an entity that can be fixed and made to overcome nearly all biological death.” Really?
If actual machines made of much stronger stuff than delicate flesh—say, of steel or titanium—cannot be made to operate forever, why would we expect anything more from our bodies? Moreover, we are not made of elementary components that can be changed like lightbulbs. Our many biological systems are so varied, complex, and interactive that we may never fully grasp how it all works.
Even the “simple” human cell is so intricate that scientists are not close to understanding its functions after more than a century of study. As one scientific report put it, cells are “complex genetic regulatory circuits and networks that process information in a manner similar to engineered circuits and systems, but with density, complexity, and capabilities that far exceed those found in manmade systems.” Ditto the complex interactions among our genes, proteins, and the myriad other biological systems that constitute our biological life. One need not apply the senescence inference to understand that no amount of research investment or scientific experimentation will figure out how to remodel our bodies into “indefinite” life.
Uploading the Content of Consciousness onto Computers Does Not Equal Immortality
Most transhumanists recognize that, which is why they conjure wild scenarios by which they hope to remain alive despite their bodies’ inevitable deterioration. Perhaps the most popular of these is the notion of uploading one’s content of consciousness onto a computer enhanced with artificial intelligence to “live” forever, as it were, in the Cloud or as cyberbeings.
But would the uploaded program really be that person? No. True life requires a living body. Moreover, the totality of our physical existence is far more than the sum of our measurable thoughts or the pattern of neural synapses firing in the brain. We do not just think. We also feel. Our emotions change our bodies, and our bodies affect our emotions—as all three—thoughts, body, feelings—affect our life’s course. And then there is the pesky issue of the subconscious!
These constituents of life could, at best, only be partially mimicked by artificial intelligence. As Duke University neurologist Miguel Nicolelis told the BBC: “You cannot code intuition; you cannot code aesthetic beauty; you cannot code love or hate. There is no way you will ever see a human brain reduced to a digital medium. It’s simply impossible to reduce that complexity to the kind of algorithmic process that you will have to have to do that.” In other words, the uploaded computer programs would no more be “you” than the animatronic Lincoln in Disney World’s Hall of Presidents is the real Honest Abe.
Transhumanism Is Immoral
While I do not believe transhumanism’s dream of immortality will ever be attained, I do worry that its values could take hold. That would be bad for society. Why? At its core, transhumanism is an immoral belief system. Transhumanist obsessions are utterly solipsistic. In the end, all that ultimately matters is “me” staying alive. Virtues? Altruism? Self-sacrifice? What good are they if we are going to die and “morality is defined by the amount of time one has to live”?
Most dangerously, transhumanism is ultimately utopian, meaning the overriding urgency of the great cause ultimately justifies any means. Hence, Istvan’s fanatical statement that war is acceptable if that ensures he will live forever.
Think about it: The worst evils in human history have not been not caused by religion, atheism, ideology, or nationalism but, rather, by the absolutist ideology of utopianism. Think the French Revolution’s Terror, the killing fields of Cambodia, Osama bin Laden Jihadism, the eugenics movement, the Holocaust, the Gulags, etc. Smaller expressions have also led to destruction and wasted lives, such as the Heaven’s Gate cult suicides.
Utopians often produce evil because their movement’s aspirations become paramount—that is, more important than avoiding acts “traditionally perceived as immoral.” If enough people follow Istvan on the transhuman roller coaster, people could eventually get hurt.
Conclusion
Transhumanism reflects a desperate yearning to escape mortality. For those who see death as obliteration, it offers a desperate hope and sense of purpose.
But that does not make it rational—or right. As Ecclesiastics puts it, there is a time to be born and a time to die. Transhumanists would be better served if they stopped bewailing that reality and focused on making the most of the finite time we are all given.
Author: Wesley J. Smith
yogaesoteric
September 28, 2024
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