Transhumanism vs. Natural Selection: Playing God in the post-Darwinian era?

Topic Question

Are we heading towards or already in a post-Darwinian era -- where human natural selection is obsolete and the evolution of our species is completely up to us? If so, is this good or bad?

Exordium

Transhumanism refers to a philosophy in which humankind as we know it does not represent the end of our development as a species. This discussion should focus on the use of science and technology to vastly surpass the current conceptions of human limitations and what affect, if any, this has on our ability to evolve as a species through natural selection.

Expanded Discussion

We are currently curing disease with astounding precision, for the most part physical deformity and handicap is no problem and pregnancy is available to a very wide range of people who would otherwise be unable to reproduce. What kind of impact does this have on our future as a species?Is fundamentally improving the human condition morally sound (what religions would it be or not be)? Through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities, we would no longer be constrained by the human characteristics in the Bible -- we would be post-human or super-human, if you will. Does this have any effect on our outlook as far as religion is concerned?Are we on the road to immortality through neurotechnology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, *technology?{ I suppose this could have a home in Biological Evolution since we're discussing the end of natural selection and BE will most certainly arise. Feel free to place where deemed appropriate though. }This message has been edited by dsv, Sunday, June 12, 2005 08:47 PM

Just curious if this is being held or if I need to change something, et cetera. Happy to wait though, no worries.

"Us" would be the human race. No, Nazism is not a good thing but transhumanism is not Nazism at all.The goal would not be to eliminate races and unnaturally cause a selection. Quite the opposite. The reason for the lack of natural selection would be because of keeping so many people alive -- specifically those that are weaker.

Why is that so obvious? If I were in power I would not want to eliminate you.Transhumanism really has nothing to do with eugenics. It's more of a humanistic worldview from what I understand. The modern medical community is already on a progress tract toward transhuman society. It's not much different in concept than what we're doing now, just much more advanced.

It is super-human, we are already super-humans.Of course, in the future the technological singularity will, in my opinion, give birth to a genuinely smarter-than-human awake machine. In order to facilitate computational demands, I believe we will more recently see the progression of human brain/machine development.Along those lines, my point is as follows. We already have super-humans. Not only do they live among us, they are you and me.What we have is a global network of information that can be accessed from anywhere. PDAs, wireless networks, cellular networks, etc. Everything basically connects to what I call the network; The global infrastructure that surrounds us and contributes to our lives. You and I are more in tune with the network because we live it and breathe it (I assume so because you’re reading this post on this forum which is full of information from all over the world, you probably read MetaFilter and browse Wikipedia as well) but in the future perhaps one will be connected, truly connected. At this point we have a connection to the network through our keyboards and monitors. The response time is extremely slow in comparison to a direct connection but in regards to the information capacity, we are still super-human.Is there a human alive that can answer every Jeopardy question 100% of the time starting with Show 1 from Season 1 to present? What about get a 100% score on any history exam given from any university on the planet, 100% of the time? If they are connected to the network, the answer is yes, there is.That sir, is super-human.