What is transhumanism?

28/10/2020 15(15

WHAT IS TRANSHUMANISM?
Nick Bostrom

(Original version appeared in 1998, here slightly revised and with a

postscript added in 2001)

Over the past few years, a new paradigm for thinking about
humankind's future has begun to take shape among some leading
computer scientists, neuroscientists, nanotechnologists and
researchers at the forefront of technological development. The new
paradigm rejects a crucial assumption that is implicit in both
traditional futurology and practically all of today's political thinking.
This is the assumption that the "human condition" is at root a
constant. Present-day processes can be fine-tuned; wealth can be
increased and redistributed; tools can be developed and refined;
culture can change, sometimes drastically; but human nature itself is
not up for grabs.

This assumption no longer holds true. Arguably it has never been

true. Such innovations as speech, written language, printing,
engines, modern medicine and computers have had a profound
impact not just on how people live their lives, but on who and what
they are. Compared to what might happen in the next few decades,
these changes may have been slow and even relatively tame. But
note that even a single additional innovation as important as any of
the above would be enough to invalidate orthodox projections of the
future of our world.

"Transhumanism" has gained currency as the name for a new way of

thinking that challenges the premise that the human condition is and
will remain essentially unalterable. Clearing away that mental block
allows one to see a dazzling landscape of radical possibilities,
ranging from unlimited bliss to the extinction of intelligent life. In
general, the future by present lights looks very weird - but perhaps
very wonderful - indeed.

Some of the possibilities that you will no doubt hear discussed in the
coming years are quite extreme and sound like science-fiction.
Consider the following:

Superintelligent machines. Superintelligence means any form

of artificial intelligence, maybe inspired by a better
understanding of the computational architectures and learning
algorithms used by human brains, that is capable of
outclassing the best human brains in practically every
discipline, including scientific creativity, practical wisdom,
and social skills. Several commentators have argued that both
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the hardware and the software required for superintelligence

might be developed within a few decades.
Lifelong emotional well-being through re-calibration of the
pleasure-centers. Even today, mild variants of sustainable
euphoria are possible for a minority of people who respond
especially well to clinical mood-brighteners
("antidepressants"). Pharmaceuticals currently under
development promise to give an increasing number of
"normal" people the choice of drastically reducing the
incidence of negative emotions in their lives. In some cases,
the adverse side-effects of the new agents are negligible.
Whereas street drugs typically wreak havoc on the brain's
neurochemistry, producing a brief emotional "high" followed
by a crash, modern clinical drugs may target with high
specificity a given neurotransmitter or receptor subtype,
thereby avoiding any negative effect on the subject's cognitive
faculties - (s)he won't feel "drugged" - and enables a constant,
indefinitely sustainable mood-elevation without being
addictive. David Pearce advocates and predicts a post-
Darwinian era in which all aversive experience will be
replaced by gradients of pleasure beyond the bounds of normal
human experience. As cleaner and safer mood-brighteners and
gene-therapies become available, “paradise-engineering” may
become a practicable possibility.
Personality pills. Drugs and gene therapy will yield far more
than shallow one-dimensional pleasure. They can also modify
personality. They can help overcome shyness, eliminate
jealousy, increase creativity and enhance the capacity for
empathy and emotional depth. Think of all the preaching,
fasting and self-discipline that people have subjected
themselves to throughout the ages in attempts to ennoble their
character. Shortly it may become possible to achieve the same
goals much more thoroughly by swallowing a daily cocktail
pill.
Space colonization. Today, space colonization is
technologically feasible but prohibitively expensive. As costs
decrease, it will become economically and politically possible
to begin to colonize space. The thing to note is that once a
single self-sustaining colony has been established, capable of
sending out its own colonization probes, then an exponentially
self-replicating process has been set in motion that is capable -
without any further input from the planet Earth - of spreading
out across the millions of stars in our galaxy and then to
millions of other galaxies as well. Of course, this sequence of
events will take an extremely long time on a human time-
scale. But it is interesting to notice how near we are to being
able to initiate a chain of events that will have such
momentous consequences as filling the observable universe
with our descendants.
Molecular nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is the

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hypothetical design and manufacture of machines to atomic-

scale precision, including general-purpose "assemblers",
devices that can position atoms individually in order to build
almost any chemically permitted matter-configuration for
which we can give a detailed specification - including exact
copies of themselves. An existence-proof of a limited form of
nanotechnology is given by biology: the cell is a molecular
self-replicator that can produce a broad range of proteins. But
the part of design space that is accessible to present biological
organisms is restricted by their evolutionary history, and is
mostly confined to non-rigid carbon structures. Eric Drexler
was the first person to analyze in detail the physical possibility
of a practically universal molecular assembler. Once such a
gadget exists, it would make possible dirt-cheap (but perfectly
clean) production of almost any commodity, given a design-
specification and the requisite input of energy and atoms. The
bootstrap problem for nanotechnology - how to build this first
assembler - is very hard to solve. Two approaches are
currently pursued. One of them builds on what nature has
achieved and seeks to use biochemistry to engineer new
proteins that can serve as tools in further engineering efforts.
The other attempts to build atomic structures from scratch,
using proximal probes such as atomic-force microscopes to
position atoms one-by-one on a surface. The two methods can
potentially be used in conjunction. Much research is required
before the physical possibility of Drexlerian nanotechnology
can be turned into an actuality; it will certainly not happen in
the next couple of years, but it might come about in the first
few decades of the 21st century.
Vastly extended life spans. It may prove feasible to use radical
gene-therapy and other biological methods to block normal
aging processes, and to stimulate rejuvenation and repair
mechanisms indefinitely. It is also possible that nothing short
of nanotechnology will do the trick. Meanwhile there are
unproven and in some cases expensive hormone treatments
that seem to have some effect on general vitality in elderly
people, although as yet nothing has been shown to be more
effective at life-extension than controlled caloric restriction.
Extinction of intelligent life. The risks are as enormous as the
potential benefits. In addition to dangers that are already
recognized (though perhaps inadequately counteracted?), such
as a major military, terrorist or accidental disaster involving
nuclear, chemical, viral or bacteriological agents, the new
technologies threaten dangers of a different order altogether.
Nanotechnology, for example, could pose a terrible threat to
our existence if obtained by some terrorist group before
adequate defense systems have been developed. It is not even
certain that adequate defense is possible. Perhaps in a
nanotechnological world offense has a decisive intrinsic
advantage over defense. Nor is it farfetched to assume that
there are other risks that we haven't yet been able to imagine.
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The interconnected world. Even in its present form, the

Internet has an immense impact on some people's lives. And
its ramifications are just beginning to unfold. This is one area
where radical change is quite widely perceived, and where
media discussion has been extensive.
Uploading of our consciousness into a virtual reality. If we
could scan the synaptic matrix of a human brain and simulate
it on a computer then it would be possible for us to migrate
from our biological embodiments to a purely digital substrate
(given certain philosophical assumptions about the nature of
consciousness and personal identity). By making sure we
always had back-up copies, we might then enjoy effectively
unlimited life-spans. By directing the activation flow in the
simulated neural networks, we could engineer totally new
types of experience. Uploading, in this sense, would probably
require mature nanotechnology. But there are less extreme
ways of fusing the human mind with computers. Work is being
done today on developing neuro/chip interfaces. The
technology is still in its early stages; but it might one day
enable us to build neuroprostheses whereby we could "plug
in" to cyberspace. Even less speculative are various schemes
for immersive virtual reality -- for instance, using head-
mounted displays that communicate with the brain via our
natural sense organs.
Reanimation of cryonics patients. Persons frozen with today's
procedure can probably not be brought back to life with
anything less than mature nanotechnology. Even if we could
be absolutely sure that mature nanotechnology will one day be
developed, there would still be no guarantee that the cryonics
customer's gamble would succeed -- perhaps the beings of the
future won't be interested in reanimating present-day humans.
Still, even a 5% or 10% chance of success could make
cryonics contracts a rational option for people who can afford
it and who place a great value on their continued personal
existence. If reanimated, they might look forward to aeons of
subjective life time under conditions of their own choosing.

These prospects might seem remote. Yet transhumanists think there

is reason to believe that they might not be so far off as is commonly
supposed. The Technology Postulate denotes the hypothesis that
several of the items listed, or other changes that are equally
profound, will become feasible within, say, seventy years (possibly
much sooner). This is the antithesis of the assumption that the
human condition is a constant. The Technology Postulate is often
presupposed in transhumanist discussion. But it is not an article of
blind faith; it's a falsifiable hypothesis that is argued for on specific
scientific and technological grounds.

If we come to believe that there are good grounds for believing that
the Technology Postulate is true, what consequences does that have
for how we perceive the world and for how we spend our time?

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Once we start reflecting on the matter and become aware of its

ramifications, the implications are profound.

From this awareness springs the transhumanist philosophy -- and

"movement". For transhumanism is more than just an abstract belief
that we are about to transcend our biological limitations by means of
technology; it is also an attempt to re-evaluate the entire human
predicament as traditionally conceived. And it is a bid to take a far-
sighted and constructive approach to our new situation. A primary
task is to provoke the widest possible discussion of these topics and
to promote a better public understanding. The set of skills and
competencies that are needed to drive the transhumanist agenda
extend far beyond those of computer scientists, neuroscientists,
software-designers and other high-tech gurus. Transhumanism is not
just for brains accustomed to hard-core futurism. It should be a
concern for our whole society.

It is extremely hard to anticipate the long-term consequences of our

present actions. But rather than sticking our heads in the sand,
transhumanists reckon we should at least try to plan for them as best
we can. In doing so, it becomes necessary to confront some of the
notorious "big questions" about the structure of the world and the
role and prospects of sentience within it. Doing so requires delving
into a number of different scientific disciplines as well as tackling
hard philosophical problems.

While the wider perspective and the bigger questions are essential to
transhumanism, that does not mean that transhumanists do not take
an intense interest in what goes in our world today. On the contrary!
Recent topical themes that have been the subject of wide and lively
debate in transhumanist forums include such diverse issues as
cloning; proliferation of weapons of mass-destruction; neuro/chip
interfaces; psychological tools such as critical thinking skills, NLP,
and memetics; processor technology and Moore's law; gender roles
and sexuality; neural networks and neuromorphic engineering; life-
extension techniques such as caloric restriction; PET, MRI and other
brain-scanning methods; evidence (?) for life on Mars;
transhumanist fiction and films; quantum cryptography and
"teleportation"; the Digital Citizen; atomic force microscopy as a
possible enabling technology for nanotechnology; electronic
commerce.... Not all participants are equally at home in all of these
fields, of course, but many like the experience of taking part in a
joint exploration of unfamiliar ideas, facts and standpoints.

An important transhumanist goal is to improve the functioning of

human society as an epistemic community. In addition to trying to
figure out what is happening, we can try to figure out ways of
making ourselves better at figuring out what is happening. We can
create institutions that increase the efficiency of the academic- and
other knowledge-communities. More and more people are gaining
access to the Internet. Programmers, software designers, IT

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consultants and others are involved in projects that are constantly

increasing the quality and quantity of advantages of being
connected. Hypertext publishing and the collaborative information
filtering paradigm have the potential to accelerate the propagation of
valuable information and aid the demolition of what transpire to be
misconceptions and crackpot claims. The people working in
information technology are only the latest reinforcement to the body
of educators, scientists, humanists, teachers and responsible
journalists who have been striving throughout the ages to decrease
ignorance and make humankind as a whole more rational.

One simple but brilliant idea, developed by Robin Hanson, is that we

create a market of "idea futures". Basically, this means that it would
be possible to place bets on all sorts of claims about controversial
scientific and technological issues. One of the many benefits of such
an institution is that it would provide policy-makers and others with
consensus estimates of the probabilities of uncertain hypotheses
about projected future events, such as when a certain technological
breakthrough will occur. It would also offer a decentralized way of
providing financial incentives for people to make an effort to be
right in what they think. And it could promote intellectual sincerity
in that persons making strong claims would be encouraged to put
their money where their mouth is. At present, the idea is embodied
in an experimental set-up, the Foresight Exchange, where people can
stake "credibility points" on a variety of claims. But for its potential
advantages to materialize, a market has to be created that deals in
real money and is as integrated in the established economic structure
as are current stock exchanges. (Present anti-gambling regulations
are one impediment to this; in many countries betting on anything
other than sport and horses is prohibited.)

The transhumanist outlook can appear cold and alien at first. Many
people are frightened by the rapid changes they are witnessing and
respond with denial or by calling for bans on new technologies. It's
worth recalling how pain relief at childbirth through the use of
anesthetics was once deplored as unnatural. More recently, the idea
of "test-tube babies" has been viewed with abhorrence. Genetic
engineering is widely seen as interfering with God's designs. Right
now, the biggest moral panic is cloning. We have today a whole
breed of well-meaning biofundamentalists, religious leaders and so-
called ethical experts who see it as their duty to protect us from
whatever "unnatural" possibilities that don't fit into their
preconceived world-view. The transhumanist philosophy is a
positive alternative to this ban-the-new approach to coping with a
changing world. Instead of rejecting the unprecedented opportunities
on offer, it invites us to embrace them as vigorously as we can.
Transhumanists view technological progress as a joint human effort
to invent new tools that we can use to reshape the human condition
and overcome our biological limitations, making it possible for those
who so want to become "post-humans". Whether the tools are
"natural" or "unnatural" is entirely irrelevant.

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Transhumanism is not a philosophy with a fixed set of dogmas.

What distinguishes transhumanists, in addition to their broadly
technophiliac values, is the sort of problems they explore. These
include subject matter as far-reaching as the future of intelligent life,
as well as much more narrow questions about present-day scientific,
technological or social developments. In addressing these problems,
transhumanists aim to take a fact-driven, scientific, problem-solving
approach. They also make a point of challenging holy cows and
questioning purported impossibilities. No principle is beyond doubt,
not the necessity of death, not our confinement to the finite resources
of planet Earth, not even transhumanism itself is held to be too good
for constant critical reassessment. The ideology is meant to evolve
and be reshaped as we move along, in response to new experiences
and new challenges. Transhumanists are prepared to be shown
wrong and to learn from their mistakes.

Transhumanism can also be very practical and down-to-earth. Many

transhumanists find ways of applying their philosophy to their own
lives, ranging from the use of diet and exercise to improve health
and life-expectancy; to signing up for cryonic suspension; creating
transhumanist art; using clinical drugs to adjust parameters of mood
and personality; applying various psychological self-improvement
techniques; and in general taking steps to live richer and more
responsible lives. An empowering mind-set that is common among
transhumanists is dynamic optimism: the attitude that desirable
results can in general be accomplished, but only through hard effort
and smart choices.

Are you a transhumanist? If so, then you can look forward to

increasingly seeing your own views reflected in the media and in
society. For it is clear that transhumanism is an idea whose time has
come.

_______________

Postscript

(September, 2001)

This article was first published in 1998. Since then things have
developed, both technologically (of course) but also philosophically.
I want to say just a few words about the main changes in my own
thinking that have occurred over the past years.

1. When the first version was written, the main challenge was to
make people aware of potential developments that the article
discusses. That has been happening increasingly. Although there is
still a long way to go, the focus for me has shifted to getting into the
details, taking more account of the obstacles and downsides, and
trying to develop a more sensitive treatment of the complex issues
involved.

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2. Many people are scared by transhumanism. While some of the

fear is based on misconceptions, a significant part of it reflects a
legitimate concern that in the process of pursuing technological
“improvements”, we could risk losing some of the things that we
regard as most valuable. The challenge, therefore, is to be sensitive
to our fundamental values and to find a vision and a roadmap that
will not lead to their disappearance but rather their enhancement
(albeit, perhaps, in a transposed form). We must emphasize that what
we should strive for is not technology instead of humanity, but
technology for humanity.

3. In addition to the somewhat intangible risk that we create a

“utopia” where we have forgotten to include the things we care
about most, there are various concrete risks of technology being used
destructively, either by accident or malicious intent (consider e.g. the
risks from nanotechnology referred to above). Planning to minimize
these risks is a central concern.

4. A fundamental fact about us humans is that we care about how we

relate to each other. Love, affection, envy, and friendships are such
important parts of who and what we are that they cannot be left out
of the equation. And there are no easy technological fixes to these
issues. For example, maybe future technology could give you the
illusion and the feeling of being loved. But maybe what you really
want is to actually be loved – and not just by some custom-made
lovebot, but by this currently existing human being that you have
given your heart to. The best technology could do is to help you
create the conditions under which your love could flourish and grow
indefinitely, unencumbered by the erosive forces of current material
and psychological conditions.

_______________

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’m grateful to Anders Sandberg and David Pearce for comments on

an earlier draft.

About Nick Bostrom

Dr. Nick Bostrom received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the

London School of Economics in the year 2000. He is currently a
Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy at Yale University. A
founder of the World Transhumanist Association, he is the author of
numerous publications in the foundations of probability theory,
ethics, transhumanism, and philosophy of science, including the
book Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and
Philosophy (Routledge, New York), which is due out in April 2002.
For more information, see: http://www.nickbostrom.com

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