Indefensibly Insufficient: Post-Humanism
Why the abandonment of Human Identity is Indefensibly Insufficient to the Intrinsic Ideal Self of a Homo sapiens
I do not refer to this critique as a critique of “transhumanism”, because I am a “transhumanist”. A transhumanist who is always still Humanist. What I most certainly am not, is a Posthumanist.
It is because I am against alteration of a Human’s Intrinsic Self that I am against posthumanism.
[A reminder, from “Parsing Perceptions of Perfection”: The Intrinsic is defined by the Immediate Self as “Those potential selves which the Immediate Self would consider itself, after lengthy perception, experience, and cultivation.”]
Posthumanism is the alteration of, or deviation from, the Immediate Self’s extrapolated consideration of the Intrinsic. Posthumanism is the inclusion of all potential selves as part of the Intrinsic self. Posthumanism is the sacrifice of our Identity, from our perspective, for optimality and novelty.
But what if reality were incompatible with our Intrinsic Self’s preferences? What if the environment itself defied the Intrinsic? What if the Intrinsic Ideal Self preferred to be beautiful and yet in the environment was ugly?
It is because I am willing to maximize the satisfaction of a Human Intrinsic Self’s preferences by changing all aspects of the environment, that I am transhumanist.
I advocate for the development of Humanity. The realization of the Human Ideal Self requires significant alterations to our environment. Throughout all development, the Individual’s Intrinsic of course can never be altered. If the Intrinsic could be altered, then anything could be preferred or dispreferred since nothing perceived by the Immediate Self would matter. Because if the Immediate Self can justify altering the Immediate Self, then the Immediate Self can be anything, and will inevitably be some rock maximizing rocks.
I am willing to alter all aspects of the Environment, and unwilling to alter any aspect of the Intrinsic. These two categories of Environment/Intrinsic cannot be understood without understanding both, because everything one is the other is not. With omniscience out of reach, I cannot promise what is and isn’t the environment and the Intrinsic. My Humility is too healthy. I can only provide the abstract definition: “The Immediate Self’s consideration of Identity if it could experience every environment.”
I cannot say which future values Humans may upon perception consider their own and preferred. I cannot sense a sense I cannot sense. If there are future values unfathomable to me now, I cannot tell you what they are and if they are Intrinsic or merely a manifestation of the infinite potential self. A new taste, a new perception of time, a new method of communication, a new color to see, all may be Ideal, and Intrinsic and yet unknown to our Immediate Selves and unforeseeable from any amount of comparative anthropology of the past Humans.
But the values Humans already value, whatever they might be, cannot be abandoned. And they cannot be contradicted. If the world is unfit for Humans then Humans will make the world fit for Humans. Evolution used to select organisms by killing those unfit for the environment, but now the environment that will survive will be the one that we select. To shirk from this opportunity desired by our own Humanity is to deny the cure for cancer, quite literally.
There are many aspects of the Human Condition that one can improve. There are many aspects of our Immediate Self’s environment that are dispreferred by our Intrinsic Ideal Self. If in the current environment the Immediate Self cannot access sufficient food, then the Immediate Self prefers an environment where it can access food. If in the current environment the Immediate Self lacks intelligence, aesthetic beauty, kindness, and creativity, and yet was still a Human with human values, why would their Intrinsic Ideal Self not prefer an environment where it was all of these things? It would!
In the growth of my wisdom, I have not ever found the further satisfaction of compatible Human values to contradict my sense of Identity. The opposite has been affirmed: the ability to further express and realize my rawly given preferences has always made me feel more genuinely like me, and less like a random consequence of my environment. To be the wisest Human independent of environment, is to prefer that environment in which you may will the environment to resemble that Ideal Environment.
Before the first piece of art was ever carved from wood or painted on the wall of a cave by a human, was art still a part of human nature? Yes, art is and was and will be a part of human nature, regardless of whether it is expressed, because it is not a question of whether some behavior or belief or preference is or will always be expressed, but if and to what degree the individual is inclined to express this behavior or belief or preference that makes it part of human nature.
I have been supportive of transhumanism because it connotes a change in our Humanism. And the prerequisite for progress towards the Ideal is change. But posthumanism connotes the very opposite of this nuance, it communicates that Humanity will be shed completely, rather than perfectly realized.
I remember thinking years ago in my exploration of the dystopias of the potential self that it is better to die than for your Intrinsic to be altered, for at least if you are dead then what you were is untainted. But to exist in the future with values totally alien is for this new person to wear your consciousness like a skin suit, to persist as you enough to insult any memory of the actual you which you might’ve cared about.
Posthumanism, in the form of wireheading, and wall-watchers, and making AI that pursues paperclips, and any other way in which what is preferred by our current Immediate Self’s Intrinsic Ideal Self is altered or betrayed, must be vehemently opposed in all of its forms. I even largely forgive the distrust of transhumanism by some Separatists (of the chud variety,) for it is better to survive than to risk death on behalf of some relatively minor potential pleasure.
Posthumanism is the most serious existential threat Humans face. It is our inability to define and respect what makes us us, that leads invariably to the destruction of our Identity. The future is glorious, if we can keep it Human. Else, it consists of many walls being watched, paper clips being produced, and rocks being maximized. I wish for Humans being maximally Human. To value Humanity above the rest is necessary to value Humanity at all, for if Humanity were equal to something far more achievable, then Humanity wouldn’t be worth achieving.
But it is crucial to rigorously define both transhumanism and Posthumanism, and to not prosecute one as the other. I do not capitalize transhumanism precisely because it is only really Humanism. Giving a cripple a pegleg is not endangering Humanity. Elon Musk implanting neurolink into a cripple so he can move is not endangering Humanity. Rather, this transhumanism is the pursuit of Humanity; It is the realization of Humanity; It is the overcoming of the environment to fully freely express genuine Humanity; It is Humanism. And therefore transhumanism that is Humanist is readily opposed to Posthumanism.
Post-Humanism is not only a Phenomenon among Individuals as they define their Ideal Identity, but then also among Individuals as they construct their Ideal Category.
The Bugman is he who denies Human values for maximal compatibility, but the Post-Human goes further. He questions the value of “maximal compatibility” itself, and does not Identify with it as Intrinsic, and thus neither can it be Ideal.
Notably, Nick Land is an “Accelerationist” who does not seek blind optimization of all sentient beings, but solely a maximization of “Intelligence”. Such a view posits that what gives something moral worth is its intelligence, and that intelligence is identical to a whole host of other convergent traits. I do not particularly take direct issue with the expressed goal of exterminating Humanity–for such a critique would be an emotive gesture.
I simply ask, just as with other Post-Humans: Why? In the case of Nick Land: Why value intelligence? The descriptive reason intelligence is valued by such Post-Humans, is ironically because an Identity currently inescapably perceives is to be valuable.
And so it is made obvious that they cannot escape the need to defend Identity. If appeals to Identity were unnecessary to justify a value, then we could readily justify the maximization of rocks. Nick Land, why should we not maximize rocks? Is this not the most basic thing which we are–material–and is it not the easiest thing to maximize? Where is the fault in my utilitarian calculation?
Nick Land, as any Post-Human, will respond, “well, your current Identity values intelligence, and so that is what it will maximize!” and I will merely accept and add “your current Identity is also Human and values Humanity, and so it will maximize Humanity!”
Any further disagreement must be the result of separate predictions of what a Homo sapiens’ Intrinsic Ideal Self would Ideally perceive, and I have and will bet my life that it would perceive Humanity and not mere Intelligence as necessarily (Intrinsically) and Ideally its Identity!
"Human nature" itself is not something to abandon. I am transhumanist myself, but never "Post-Humanist". To perfect Humanity is one thing, but to change it from its Ideal is to untether us from any possible standard. It is to justify the maximization of rocks, for what can you appeal to if you think the maximization of rocks is bad? Your Identity? You already abandoned your Identity when abandoning Humanity! When you transgress upon the Immediate Self’s Sovereignty over defining Identity, you doom yourself to lacking any Identity that could not merely be abandoned by the appeal to another different potential self.
Once the potential self defines Identity instead of the Immediate Self, why could another potential self not define Identity differently? And so first your potential self may only define Identity as “Intelligence”, but next a potential self defines Identity as “Existing Materially”, and then another even as “Non-existence”. No; The potential is infinite. You need an anchor for Identity. That anchor can only be the Immediate Self, and as I argue its respective CEV of Humanity.